
(.4 vP„ 



.V 



i™>'™ • ^<j. ilk' ♦ j\\ «» y^ ''5^ 



''^ 



.N^^ 



.0 



,«^ 



A 



^. 



A 



'0^ 
























^'V 




I 



Patriotism. 



Democracu or EmDlre? 



A Satire. 






•^^^ 



w 






^03S5 




80240 



Copyrighted 1900, 
By T. M. NORWOOD. 



PREFACE. 



Could a patriot of the Itevohition stand on the step of 
time marked A. D., 1787, and loolc down the vista of a hun- 
dred and thirteen years, he would be lost in wonder at the 
advance of liis country in material improAement, and in 
despair at its political and moral decline. We — the present 
generation — do not realize the extent of either. The nurse 
that watches day by day the subject of a slowly wasting 
malady can not see so well the effect of the disease as the 
friend who returns after a prolonged absence. 

When Swartwout embezzled a few thousand dollars of 
public funds, sixty! years ago, the conscience of the republic 
was shocked and his venal sin fell heavily on his political 
party. Now, the theft of millions of dollars is regarded as 
so venial that a law cannot be ])assed by Congress to aid in 
bringing the criminals to trial. So potent is money — so great 
the influence of men who are wealthy — that politicians in 
high places flocked to Washington and lobbied to defeat the 
Bill intended to remove legal technicalities found by a 
federal judge against the bringing of those men to justice. 
The Senator who smothered the Bill in the House, and who 
is the uncrowned ruler of the State of New York, has gained 
political power by that nefarious deed. 

Because Mr. Clay was suspected of a trade relating to an 
office, he was defeated for the presidency by the aroused 
virtue of the republic. Now, JVIarc Hanna can go openly in 
the market and levy a fund of millions to buy tlie presi- 
dency, and it overcomes us with no special wonder. 

Forty years ago, the fall through lechery of Bishop Onder- 
donk horrified laymen as well as clergy. Now, such a. lapse 
is the subject of ribald jest for a. day and is then forgotten. 

Fifty years ago, every American was justl3" proud of his 
nationality. " I am a Roman citizen " was never uttered 
with a. loftier crest than was, "I am an American." Now, 
What a change! Within thirty years there has grown up 
a class — not numerous, but strong through the power of 
wealth, that long for a king. They swarm to Europe. They 
there form colonies. They court the nobility, and the women 
throw themselves in the path of that herd of drones to be 
picked up nominally as wives, but in reality as the despised 
annex to wealth. The rabies called Anglomania is spread- 
ing rapidly among the rich. They lean to empire. They 
desire a vast standing army to that end. 

So A'irulent is this rabies, the minds of some have become 
so far diseased that they call themselves "Royal Dames,'' 
and seek purification of their plebeian blood by Faith cure 
— ^by belief that it contains the weak, but healing dilution 
of a drop of royalty. 



IV. 

There is a treasonable diathesis in some clergy in Phila- 
delphia who secretly decry Democracy by public adoration 
of England's worst tyrant king, as a "blessed martyr." 

A generation ago, our women "looked not npon the wine 
when it is red." To-day, in onr large cities there are resorts 
where women habitually drink whiskey, gin and brandy 
and become intoxicated. 

Thirty years ago, a married woman in trade was an anom- 
aly. Now, women in large cities gamble in futures as a 
steady occupation. The clergy, too, not only wink at this 
iniquity, but themselves take a chance at perdition. 

The extent of the social decline is notably emphasized by 
the Bradley-Martin Ball, but three years ago. "If this be 
done in the green bush, what will it be in the dry?" By such 
open, flaring pollution we can judge what the stage of 
putrefaction must be in the midnight slums and dives, the 
submerged, reeking stews caged in beneath the upper crust. 

A hundred and more roues strutted as Louis XIV and 
Louis XV of France — the worst and last of her tyrants; 
twenty-two as their mistresses — Madames Du Barry, Pom- 
padour, Maintenon and Valliere, and three as the most le- 
cherous of all Europe's royal prostitutes — Catherine of Rus- 
sia. Charity pleads for them ignorance of history and biog- 
raphy; but Truth replies — those venerators of royal 
strumpets know more of Burke's English Heraldry than 
they know of their next-door neighbors; more of French 
exemplars of vice than of Martha Washington. A quarter- 
million dollars Avasted for the erotic pleasure of an awk- 
ward parade in the counterfeit robes of royal tyrants and 
their harlots! Tliat night there was rejoicing in the under 
crust of nymphs du pace. Their occupation had been recog- 
nized and commemorated by the Upper Ten's delight in 
wearing tlie old clothes of their soiled sisters dead near two 
centuries ago. 

Before the war between the States, labor strikes were 
unknown. Now, every day's sun looks down on a mammoth 
strike in factories, mines, or other industries. 

Then, riots were very rare and mostly political. Now, 
scarcely a week passes without a riot, small or large, result- 
ing in the taking of life. Then, lynching was so rare that 
the man who was the leader in one, gave to this lawless ven- 
geance his name. 

What lawyer, even a generation ago, ever dreamed even in 
a delirium, that the Bench of this country could be subor- 
dinated to wealth so far as to enjoin a laborer from leaving 
the service of an employer when they could not agree on 
the wages to be paid? That the laborers for leaving would 
be shot to death by a sheriff's posse? 

Who dreamed that within a generation a half dozen men 
could and would grab and hold the subterranean fuel and 
oil of the earth? 

WTio dreamed that prices for all produce — necessaries of 
life — would be fixed by gambling? 



V. 

These among maii}^ other proofs of decline and decay; 
these signs of approaching dissolution, or of reorganization 
on the model of Europe's dynasties, or of a regeneration 
through fire, induced the writing of the following satire. 
1 realize its many and great defects, and, that it can not 
stay even a wavelet of the polluted and polluting tide, but 
it may inspire in the breasts of those who are compelled to 
take up and to bear "the white man's burden," the spirit of 
resistance. 

Patriotism is my inspiration. I desire to elevate its stand- 
ard. I wish to infuse into the young men pride in their 
birth and home; to breathe into them the spirit of '7(>; to 
teach our women that the grandest type of man is an un- 
titled American freeman panoplied in truth, honor and 
virtue; with chivalric devotion to her sex — too proud to 
acknowledge a superior by caste, or on a throne, and who 
would meet martyrdom rather than make her feel "I am 
better than thou!" 

A few words on the remedy for the greatest of our ills and 
I close: 

The aggregation of such vast wealth is breeding impe- 
rialism. Rome stood unshaken until a few acquired nearly 
all her wealth. Then came empire as naturally as wealth 
begets idleness, idleness vice, vice corruption, corruption 
weakness, and weakness is followed by a fall. 

There must be a limit fixed to wealth. No man has the 
natural or the social right to the wealth owned by a Rocke- 
feller. It is a menace to the Republic. Its power is too 
great. To the financial world, it is what the sword of Nero, 
Caligula or Domitiau, was to the Roman citizen. It can slay 
without responsibility to human law. It can crush, invisi- 
bly, competitors, statesmen and judges. In time of turmoil, 
of social upheaval, it can change the republic to empire in 
a night. The social compact through w^hose indulgence and 
protection such accumulation is only possible, is the njeans 
to prevent it. 

The remedy is easy and plain. It is peaceful. The peo- 
ple hold it. They alone will apply it. The remedy is to 
amend the federal Constitution, limiting property-holding — 
all excess to go to the republic for the public good. Its 
operation, not to do injustice, should be prospective. The 
legislatures can act; the people can demand of their Con- 
gressmen to act, and can bury them if they refuse or dally. 

Another amendment should follow. It is to levy a rax 
on incomes and inheritances. Justice requires that this 
should be a federal tax. No State should have the exclu- 
sive benefit of either. No valid reason can be given to show 
that the accident of residence, or place of death, should give 
to one State all the benefits of a tax on incomes and inheri- 
tance arising from property gathered from the entire people 
of the United States. The Standard Oil octopus sucks the 
blood of the entire Union, and the people should receive the 
benefit of all such income and inheritance taxes, to be spent 



VI. 

for education, public improvements in liaibors, rivers, drain- 
age, irrigation and highways. 

These measures are not revolutionary. They are reme- 
dial. They are just and, in my opinion, nothing short of 
them will prove effective. Tlie creature has grown to be 
stronger than its creator. It has outstripped the Constitu- 
tion — indeed, is destroying it word by word, paragraph by 
paragraph. 

"The Safety of The Republic is the Supreme Law." 

A satire that is impersonal is a misnomer, or it is a stab 
in the dark. Of all the persons herein named, there is not 
one towards whom I feel the least unkindness. There are 
but four of all with whom I am personally acciuainted. 
They have done me no wrong. It is wrongs to my country 
that I resent. They are types of classes — nothing more. 
They are a small part of a great whole. I protest not against 
the men and women, but against their methods; not against 
their wealth, but the abuse of it to the hurt of the people 
and the Republic. 

My countrymen I this remedy is in your hands. You have 
but to speak and require your servants to act, and the Re- 
public will he saved from what, at present, is its greatest 
peril. 

This Satire is an offering to Freedom. It is Tr-uth clothed 
in verse, but it contains not a hundredth ])art of the whole 
truth. It is intended to call you into action — peaceable, 
legal, but effective for your security and that of coming gen- 
erations. 

If it be that the thoughts herein feebly expressed may con- 
tribute to your welfare and the life of Liberty, my purpose 
will be attained — my reward be sufficient. 

May your labors in behalf of Freedom be not in vain. 
May it not be that in a distant age, some philosopher stand- 
ing on a more exalted jdain, and looking backward over the 
graves of empires and nations, may come to the urn in which 
Time has gathered the ashes of this fair Republic, and hand- 
ling its dust, as Hamlet the skull of Yorick, sadly moralize: 

" There is a moral to all human tales. 

'T is but the same rehearsal of the past — 

First freedom, and then glory; when that fails — 

Wealth, vice, corruption — barbarism at last." 



To WILLIAM McKINLEY, 



Scribe to Marc Honna^ and Proconsul 
under Marcus Antonius, First Emperor 
of the United States, the Philippines, 
Porto Rico, Hawaii and Guam. 



CANTO riRST— INTRODUCTORY. 

1. 

I have been absorbed in meditation, 
Not deep but full of grave anxiety 
For your welfare and that, too, of the nation. 
My thoughts though grave were not on piety — 
As they sprung from your administration, 
Which, no doubt, taken in its entirety, 
Has placed more souls to the Devil's debit 
Than have all our preachers to their credit. 



Thifc', of course, is but an estimate, 

As I have no statistician table 

Of suicides, murders, burglaries great 

And small, larcenies innumerable. 

Robberies by all those who speculate 

In man's necessaries, whose wealth Dame Fable 

Could not reckon in a hundred years — 

Coined from labor's blood, cursed by orphans' tears. 



But, I must not anticipate. Order 

Is Nature's great, first law — so it is said. 

As I purpose being the recorder 

Of such of your acts as you're not afraid 

Would displease Hanna whose slightest laucla 

Outv/eighs the praises by a nation paid, 

1 will begin now at the beginning — 

Wishing you sinned against instead of sinning. 



4. 

I wish to save yon if it can be done, 

And, incidentally, to save the State. 

The honr is far gone — would 1 had begun 

Before youi- status grew so desperate. 

When your empire was not " an hour by sun," 

I saw the signs of woe but thought I'd wait, 

Knowing, you are an old hand at the bellows. 

And not dreaming that Hanna and such fellows 



Held a double blanket mortgage on you, 

Stretching from New Brunswick to Manila, 

That covers every office old and new; 

Or, that our ship of state, hull, sails and tiller. 

Manned by Earth's noblest, bravest, proudest crew, 

You'd turned over to that man-gorilla. 

If he does not sink you and all your cabinet 

'Twill be, because the Devil does not want you yet. 

6. 

Still, Mister President, my heart is set 
On one desperate jHill for your release. 
To do so I must join your cabinet, 
AVhich I do now as Secretaky of Peace. 
You'll wonder if I'm sane — because I get 
No pay, honor, glory, thanks, not even "grease 
On my palms" to make me half respectable. 
Nor lobby feasts, bribes, and wines delectable. 



"Taking a federal office without pay? 

Why— the infernal fool must be insane, 

Or multi-millionaire — to act that way. 

Who else could or would take it but for gain, 

Or honor, or for the power we sway, 

(By Hanna's leave, of course), o'er sea and main. 

We fear — (his way of joining's so uncivil). 

He may be Fawkes, or Cade — perhaps the Devil." 



Peace be with you. Brother Secretaries ! 
Your Chief draws fifty M. without a qualm ; 
Y^ou, eight, each, like faithful janizaries. 
One can be a patriot without the balm 
Of Cleveland's "honest money," whose care is 
Not for self, office, power, or the palm 
Won for butchery of mankind for pay 
Reckoned, at most, at fifty cents a day. 



9. 

Did Joan of Arc barter for saving France ? 
Did Codes set his price for freeing Rome ? 
Did Leonidas, ere liis proud advance 
To death ? Did Count l*uUiski come, 
And La Fayette, liaron DeKalb, for the chance 
To lill ft Hessian purse and tlien go home 
Jolly and drunk, like millionaires from a race, 
Insensible to honor or disgra(;e ? 

10. 

These are of the greatest of earth's heroes, 
{Joan, of heroines and, also, a martyr), 
With hearts defiant of all tyrant Neroes. 
What to them was ribbon, bay, or garter ? 
There was no gem treasured 'mong the stores 
Of Al Rhascid, Cenghis Khan, the Tartar,. 
That would not pale its ineffectual flame 
Beside the lustre of a patriot's name. 

11. 

And yet, with all due modesty, I claim 
A patriotism higher than all these. 
Before you smile, give me time to name 
My reasons num'rous, cogent, by degrees. 
You'll not say they are impotent and lame 
Unless my logic puts you ill at ease. 
A patriot's logic has no respect for station — 
Its sole duty is to look out for the nation. 

12. 

Nations have come and gone so vast 

The earth has quaked beneath their pond'rous tread. 

Kingdoms, empires, republics, all have passed 

The Throne of Heaven in review. The dead 

Outnumber far the living. Their wrecks massed 

On the misty shores of time are a dread 

Lesson teaching as with a trumpet's call, 

" Beware our fate — learn wisdom from our fall." 

Xo. 

Ministers they had of high and low degree, 
But greatest of all, Minister of W^ar. 
Of all their go-ds of heaven, earth and sea. 
Mars, the Bloody, was their favorite star. 
For his carnivals at Thermopylae, 
Marathon, Ir^alamis, Cannae, Arbela, 
Even we, disciples of the Prince of Peace, 
Adore this butcher-god of Rome and Greece. 



14. 

" Peace on earth, Good will to man," has been ringing 
Twenty centuries through Heaven and Earth. 
The righteous sons of (Jod have been singing 
Hosannas to the Prince of l»eace since Christ's birth. 
Down Jacob's ladder angels have been bringing 
Messages of love from the White Throne sent forth. 
But, Mars' slaughter house has not been closed a day- 
Pride, Ambition, Power, had lather kill than pray. 

15. 

Two thousand years ! Sixty generations ! 

May be — six million — have come and gone to dust. 

And ijerished with theui a hundred nations 

Creeping, first, with "petty jiace," as each must, 

Then by the sword gaining their high stations. 

And by it dying — ambition's holocaust. 

As war's alarms have never had surcease, 

No wonder, there ne'er has been a Minister of Peace 

16. 

Demonstration of my patriotism. 

In the scholastic style, will not be made. 

With "premises" et cet. called syllogism. 

I bridle Pegasus to give me aid, 

With horse-sense told in verse and rythm 

That oft a syllogism " lays in the shade." 

By instalments the proof will come, in driblets, 

As an honest bankrupt pays his honest debts. 

> 17. 

Where to begin, where to end, " gars me greet." 
I am like Baba in the robber's den. 
Where'er his ravished vision or his feet 
Wandered, he gazed on riches \\ithout end- 
Entrancing sight! to avarice so sweet, 
('hoosing, he threw away, then chose again, 
As Prentiss' teeming fancy similes supplied. 
So rich, between them he was troubled to decide. 

18. 

There ends the parallel — in quantity. 

In quality — "here's ricbness" that old Squeers 

Would covet: Marlboro burst his tomb to see; 

Would wring from Swartwaut agonizing tears 

At Carter's million haul; till with envy 

Wolsey at Hanna's power, and the fears 

Of a cringing Cabinet and of their master, too. 

As their simple clerkship duties humbly they pursue. 



19. 

Oh! for Morgiana's opportimitj 

And art and means — not forty jars, 

One for each thief, but ten thousand, fulh' ; 

And a sea of oil to nial^e tliem " see stars' — 

(They might escape by pUniding lunacy) — 

But there's one thing, this consummation, mars — 

With oil 1 could not drown a single fellow, 

Without tapping the World's Oil Tank — Rockefeller. 

20. 

Mercy! what an api>etite for dirt oil 

That fellow has — and such capacity ! 

I wonder he does not his clothing moil — 

He grabs and gulps with such voracity ! 

If there were law to make that fellali toil, 

'Twould gauge his greed to the mild rapacity 

Of Bigbellied Ben's who ate a church and steeple, 

A cow, calf, hog and a half, the priest and all the people. 

21. 

A doctor's horse thinks everybody's sick. 
Or ought to be — as his master wishes — 
And stops at ev'ry honse. Mine has the trick 
Of shying, prancing, and jum])ing ditches, 
And by-roads taking; hence 1 must be quick 
To rein him in, then lecture him with, switches 
To keep the road and not be (juite so frisky, 
Which, but to Teddie Roosevelt, is very risky. 



The truth must be confessed — he is not trained. 
He'll break his gait — rack, trot, gallop, amble. 
As you must ride behind, not to get strained. 
Reach round and hold on firmly by the pummel. 
As I carry Caesar, I'll keep him high reined 
So he cannot kick, and, perhaps, not stumble, 
Should he buck and jolt you, slip off behind the crupper- 
Bucking 's not prescribed to give appetite for supper. 

23. 

My Pegasus in sev'ral gaits will move, 
Stepping in spondee, trochee, iambic. 
As our varying subject may approve. 
Should lie run away you'll feel dithyrambic. 
But what boots it. when a woman we love, 
Whether she wear silk, calico, or cambric ? 
It's substance not shadow, that wins a true lover, 
Books the new rich purchase only for their cover. 



24. 

Whil»» siiiftinj:-, a few staves I would essay 
In sentiment, if I thoiij»ht you'd know a note. 
As b) Plauna and Alj^ei- and such clay, 
I'd as soon siuj; opeia to a. goat. 
Besides, my tiieme forbids the dreamer's lay, 
Being- more like the anecdotes of Choate — 
Wanting the Attic and religious flavor. 
To win a poet's or a preacher's favor. 



Still, like Tam O Shanter, I'll " skelpit on 

Through mud and mire,'' well knowing that my Muse 

Is not the best " that e'er lifted leg" — song 

I should have, said — thougii, "lifted 's" no abuse 

Of teruis, for some preachers often say, "Long 

Metre," then making for their voice excuse, 

Remark softly, "Brother Jones will please raise the hymn" — 

Which f I ones "raises" as easy as falling off a limb. 

26. 

" Through mud and mire " ! Aye — there's the rub — alas I 

My Pegasus, though winged, would not be able 

To mount on high, for, my Herculean task 

Is to try to clean your Augean stable, 

Though no rivers through it have I to pass. 

Hercules' labors, we're told, are fable; 

Mine's as gTuesome as Valjean's journey through the 

sewer — 
I would rather hud a fleet naiad and pursue her. 

■ 27. 

The subjects for our thoughts are various. 

And equal to your failures that are many. 

Creeds I exclude, being not sectarious — 

(That word, though heterodox, is good as any. 

Words, like religions, are multifarious 

And orthodox, or not worth a penny. 

As the use of one, and adherents of the others, 

Suits the speaker, or are always clannish brothers.) 

28. 

We will talk of tariff, Jonah, fishes. 
Now and Iheu of a greedy millioiiaiie. 
Also, a few American Misses; 
Hanna and the negro — the Arcadian Pair; 
Vanderbilt and Gould — of course, of riches, 
British Bill Astor, Mackay, Quay and Fair — 
Of Filipinos and our passing Constitution — 
If I can reach it before its dissolution. 



29. 

We'll see Hanna in Heaven on a tear, 
Then see what figure he will cut in Hades, 
We will speak of embalmed beef and Alger — 
But at this point we'll exclude the ladies — 
Attar o' roses, could not perfume the air ! 
Of Rockefeller, as it is said his 
Plethora needs surgery b}^ tapping. 
To save us from his stomach's over-lapping. 

30. 

Carter's case will next receive attention. 
Are 3'ou aware this gentleman 's from Ohio ? 
Excuse me, that fact is scarce worth mention. 
But, there are facts candidates wish to know — 
Is a culprit rich ? Draws he a pension ? 
Has he friends influential? Is he poor? 
Of course, to such things you have not given thought- 
There are other ways than by money being bought. 

31. 

The entire nation fears your health will fail — 

Still, should it, we must and will conform us 

To the will of Pio violence. With you at the tail, 

Hanna at the head, could not alarm us, 

As 'twould not be new. We'd still get our mail, 

I'axes pay, buy stamps, fatten Trusts, rot in Manila, 

Short commons eat, and sleep without a pillow. 



32. 

Dukes, Earls and Counts and all such no-accounts- 
Our brothers-in-law by recent marriage — 
^V^e'll weigh to see to what each am.ounts. 
Americans must guard against miscarriage 
In affairs marital : our girls should bounce 
Every titled knave who pays sea-ferriage 
To cribbage cash to waste on fetes and wines, 
Racing, gambling, yachting, lust and concubines. 

33. 

Lastly we will discuss your own affairs — 
Not with Hanna and Walker — but of State. 
Consider where your fences need repairs — 
That, money, of course, will necessitate, 
And a raid by Hanna on Millionaires — 
Your Minister Penitentiary delegate. 
Truly, " the times are sadly out of joint," 
When you a eunuch in morals thus anoint. 



34. 

I was about to say "thus appoint'' — but truth 

Is mighty — Marc Hanna appointed you. 

The Constitution — you heard of in youth — 

Now obsolete — (hence we are in this stew) — 

Says " appointment " for election, forsooth, 

And I suppose, that defunct parchment knew 

" A handsaw from a hawk," but could not understand, 

How a President can be elected by one man. 

35. 

Now for my contention, as lawyers say, 
I beg you'll bear my premises in mind — 
As Secretary of Peace I get no pay — 
No gifts, nor perquisites of any kind. 
No fame awaits with crown of laurel or bay, 
E'en Amos Cottle leaves me far behind. 
Like Adam's recollection, I stand alone — 
My own progenitor with no hope of son — 

36. 

At your Board to sit till your term expires: 
To gaze on Hanna's mug behind your chair; 
To watch him impudently pull the wires 
Like a vulgar fakir at a county fair. 
Rejecting needy sons of patriot sires. 
Appointing vagabonds with woolly hair. 
The white man's offices used as bribes for votes 
Bought as easily as market sheep or shoats; 

87. 

To look at Alger and keep wondering 
Was it his heart or legs that played truant 
Whenever Mars his cannon set thundering; 
Did that absence make his tongue so fluent 
Damning the South, since peace; — then pondering 
W^hether his appointment was pursuant 
To Hanna's wish to have the South abused. 
Or because he of cowardice was accused; 



To see the tripartite combination 

Between Ambition, Cowardice and Might, 

To humble Merritt by change of station 

Just when his soldier laurels were in sight; 

To smother Lee by subordination 

Because he conscience followed in another fight; 

And Wheeler sped to Granny Otis' succor 

To save you from the fate of "Old Dan Tucker;" 



39. 

!See General Miles, commandant in chief 

Next to your majesty, by Alp;er spumed. 

And his fat pet the nation brinj^ to j;rief, 

Had not Wheeler by desp'rate courage turned 

Retreat to yictory, disaster to relief — 

While ev'ry soldier's breast with yalor burned; 

Tlien, hear Shatter praised equal to his distension. 

While the hero, AVheeler, gets " honorable mention." 

40. 

Poor little Joe, like poor Joe in Bleak House, 
Is kept "moving on" — must keep "moving on'' — 
"Fighting Joe W^heeler" — not bigger than a mouse — 
When the battle's desperate and forlorn, 
Hanna and Alger cease their wild carouse, 
Seize j'our small form, as David did the stone, 
Fling you on the foe, certain of success. 
Then hold 3^ou as a rebel, in duress. 

41. 

To sJt by Alger and Hanna, his chief, 

And smell his vile, carrion beef embalmed, 

With no promise by Death of quick relief — 

For a datesvxan in such air to he becalmed 

Is vicarious suffering of all grief — 

It is, by anticipation, being damned ! 

Oh! for a goat, limburger cheese, rotten eggs, a skunk- 

Anything for a change — even to be dead drunk ! 

42. 

To see our Sampson easily surpass 

The old Samson who could carry off gates. 

Slay thousands with the jawbone of an ass. 

And do divers great deeds The Book relates. 

By sinking a Spanish fleet of first class 

On simply seeing it, as he himself states. 

Ten miles away — Heavens ! what a basilisk eye ! 

That can a navy sink, stew, broil, roast, or fry. 

■io. 

It is enough to make a statesman faint — 
Yes — even a politician sea-sick — 
(A Chi'istian one whose piety isn't paint) — 
To see such slaughter by a dirty trick — 
Without shot or gun. With such a giant 
Loose, the Union might be shattered with a kick. 
I can't imagine how his victory came to pass, 
Except by undermining, craftiness and gas. 



10 



still, to sit and Admiral Schley to see 

Bobbed of his laurels by the legal fiction, 

""Facit per alinm, facit per se;" 

Schley being under Sampson's jurisdiction. 

All glory Schley won was '' constructively " 

By Sampson won. I venture the prediction, 

Had Schley lost, Sampson would have fled with horror 

From the rule of law, "Bespondeat superior.'' 

45. 

It's a poor rule that does not work both ways. 
"Heads I win, tails you lose," is Sampson's rule: 
For the banker safe, but to the man that plays — 
Well — no one plays it twice except a fool. 
Were I Schley, before I'd ser^e two more days 
Under that magician, I would teach school. 
Peddle pinchbeck, peanuts roast, or as the worst — 
I might descend to originate a Trust. 

46. 

With purloining laurels he did not stop ; 

The little fellow had an eye to gain. 

Prize money is the seaman's special sop. 

If Schley had sunk the ships and, Spaniards, slain, 

He'd be chief owner of the golden croj): 

This was more than avarice could sustain — 

So, the Fourth of July present had this string — 

" Take the sunken hulks, but pay me all they bring." 

47. 

Best undisturbed. Shades of Themistocles ! 

Peace be with 3'ou, great spirit of Paul Jones, 

And all ye naval heroes between these 

Of Salamis and Serapis. Your bones 

Are long resolved to dust, but the bT-ight leaves 

Of your laurels are still kept green. The stones 

Of marble honored by your graves will perish, too, 

But time can never change your chaplets' emerald hue. 

48. 

No sordid stain pollutes your snow-white glory. 
Ye never pillaged from a brother's fame: 
Ye ne'er suppressed the truth of history, , 
Nor with imagined exploits decked your name. 
Modest, simple, grand, sublime's your story; 
Your country's welfare only was your aim. 
Schley and Dewey, though still mortal, join you in the sky. 
They, like vourselves, are "heroes that were not born to 
die." 



11 



40. 

As to Sampson, I'll not try to place him, 

But leave him to Hanna, Alger, you and Long — 

Who, as Cervera's conquerer, embrace him 

With a wounded bear's hug, though not so strong. 

You've put him on the track and you must pace hiin, 

As you have resolved to do, right or wrong; 

Wliich makes a thought come rushing to my mouth — 

Poor Wheeler, Schley and Lee are from the South. 

50. 

''Base envy withers at another's joy 

And hates the excellence it cannot reach." 

Delenda est Carthago — that is, destroy 

The men whose honor baseness can't impeach. 

When in the open field you fail, employ 

Chicanery, cunning, money, deceit; teach 

Children falsehood; make history lie, God's laws abuse 

To put Saxon chastity to the brute negro's use. 

51. 

This in you is but ambition's rancor, 

In your master, the insolence of wealth; 

Each to our nation 's a dangerous canker, 

One grasping, cruel, moves by stealth; 

One devouring as an eating cancer. 

Both combined forbode certain, speedy death. 

Ambition backed by wealth in monarchy must end — 

Wealth's gluttony and insolence to anarchy tend. 



12 

CANTO SECOND. 

1. 

Patriotism is quite variable; 

It has, like verbs, many moods and tenses. 

Like bank notes it is transferable 

By hand; one is cautions of ex])enses. 

Counting costs like a thrifty constable. 

Another class has more than five senses. 

The sixth propounds the question " Will it pay ? " 

And leaves arithmetic to answer, yea, or nay. 

2. 

There is vicarious patriotism 

That for its country dies by substitute, 

While it stays home to nurse its rheumatism, 

Whose agony no doctor can disput€\ 

Then, there's "the last refuge of scoundrelism;" 

Another wears the chameleon's suit — 

Now British red, Columbia's blue, or Irish green, 

When the Hessian patriot's purse or stomach's lean. 



There 's the sanctimonious patriot 

Who thanks God he is not as other men — 

His unctions hide's too precious to be shot. 

He goes abroad as Gotham's Upper Ten, 

To boot-lick Counts when bullets fly redhot — 

Or trade his daughter like a courtesan 

For a pauper's title with the poor thing annexed 

So long by debts, diseases, concubines, pei*plexed. 



There are patriots by expatriation, 

Mackys, Bradley-Martins, Goelets, Astors, 

And many more of like occupation. 

Knights of washtubs, cooper shops, hides, ])lasters. 

Rat-traps, soap, pills, rotten army ration. 

Heroes of widows' and orphans' disasters. 

Who'd rather be tom-cats to look on queens and kings. 

Than be at home, by birth, American sovereigns. 



I make a moment's pause to moralize — 

A thing old-fashioned — really out of date; 

A thing the thoughtless young always despise- 

It's so much like a sum to calculate. 

Or problem algebraic to analyze, 

Or meditation on their future state. 

Or prudish mammas breaking up a frolic. 

Or wakened from Elysian dreams by colic. 



13 
6. 

Still, as the young will not, their elders must — 

To moralize approaches near religion. 

It elevates this animated dust 

To communion with the unknown region 

To which even the Faithless look in trust 

For rescue from bleak, cold, dread oblivion, 

Where rayless night o'er thought and dreams is spread, 

And Love — man's sole Divinitv — lies dead. 



Your majesty — of the Filipinos 

First Emperor — I do not like that stanza. 

It is not in line, even Hanna knows. 

With my theme. I had struck a bonanza 

Of vulgar, sordid, raucous, parvenus. 

And I confess, I did not understand, Sir, 

How '' Love " from them cropped out in that manner- 

Except that sweetest fruits are grown by guano. 

8. 

If so, to what sublime my thoughts had soared 
If I had mentioned Pierpont Morgan's name. 
Heaven, Paradise, houris, would be lowered 
In contrast; for, his polluting fame 
As Pander, (by all lesser pimps adored). 
Relieves the Bawd of Mitylene's shame. 
She a few victims lured to lust and death — 
He taints a nation with his lustful breath. 

9. 

Perched serenely in his " Virgins' Bower " 

So called from lucus a non lucendo ; 

With cat's ear keenly bent on Wall-Street's roar, 

His pimps and panders ogling sly below, 

Snaring the weak and faint into his power 

Who pleading Pity banished long ago, 

With practiced eye to please each lustful guest, 

He picks the fattest, fairest, youngest, best. 

10. 

What glory to be a nation's Pander ! 

To be an old Procuress for the rich ! 

What joy to bear a name immune to slander ! 

Still, Fame reserves him for a tiny niche 

Not wholly base. Hear! ye poor and wonder — 

Ye who delve, hunger, sweat, suffer, starve, stitch — 

He's put a hundred thousand dollars in dogs 

To commune with when he leavos the other hogs. 



14 

11. 

I was about to moralize awhile — 

Why is it that these tramp expatriates 

Turn to England or the Emerald Isle, 

France, Italy, Greece, Spain, and other States, 

And not to Africa or other wild. 

Where there 's affinity with empty pates ? 

Why take buck-horn handles where ivory is used ? 

Why tolerate this pack when Chinese are refused ? 

12. 

As this immigration is cause of war, 
1 advise a speedy proclamation, 
Before this exodus shall go to far — 
Apologising to ev'ry nation; 
And, that, you indignantly do declare 
(With a Jesuit's mental reservation). 
We are not responsible for this invasion — 
Though, soto voce, it makes a fair equation, 

13. 

By trading Bradley-Martins for their Huns, 

By swapping old Bill Astor for Herr Most, 

By putting on them " Chauncey" and his puns. 

By chucking off the Mackays from "the Coast" 

And not a few cracked society guns — 

Enough to justify the modest boast — 

" With a thousand such anarchists across the seas, 

We can hold in check their anarchists with ease." 

U. 

But the mystery is, why do they go ? 

Is it that sentiment and poetic taste. 

Like a burning passion in their bosoms glow ? 

Does philanthrophy draw them to each place 

Of Freedom's victory ? Seek they to know 

The sad truths we learn from the Old W^orld's waste 

And desert spots w'here nations proud and strong 

Fell by their own hand, fell by doing wrong? 

15. 

Would they inspiration's luxury feel 

By standing on Mars' Hill with Tarsus' son. 

Or at the sacred shrine of martyrs kneel — 

Breathe the heroic air of Marathon, 

Or on Olympus hear Jove's thunder peal, 

Or taste the poet's wine of Helicon — 

Thrill with the liquid tone of pure Homeric Greek, 

See Phidias marble wake, and hear it dumbly speak? 



15 
16. 

Seek they to feel the ecstacy of love 
Where Sappho in its sweet eousuming fire 
Leaped from Leucadia's weeping brow above, 
To quench the tlanie that never can expire; 
Or in mute transport in the Arcadian grove 
Lisien, and weep, to her immortal l,yre 
That, were philosophy, art, martial triumphs, dead 
^Yould o'er Greece in ruins undying glory shed ? 

17. 

Know the^' Tasso's fierce and maddening flame 
liurning in his breast until reason fled, 
Or feel the wealth of love in Thisbe's name, 
Who would not live, for Pyramus was dead; 
And Panthea's — what love has richer fame — '^ 
AMio, o'er her spouse slain for a royal Mede, 
Tli rough her loyal breast drove the pleading steel 
And, dying, by his side did joyfully kneel ? 

18. 

Oh! witness mute to pure incarnate love 
Whose dust doth jewel lone Pictolus' shore ! 
Thou wert at once the sacrificial dove 
And Priestess of him thou didst so adore 
That on his breast as altar thou didst prove 
Thy Faith, and, as Love's rich libation, pour 
Thy rubies-blood till life's expiring breath. 
And with it seal thy soul to his in death. 

19. 

Across the pathless, shoreless, night of time 
I, adoring, greet thee where'er thou art. 
Eons howe'er remote and every clime 
Are present to the sympathetic heart. 
The Beautiful, the Ti'ue, and Love sublime 
Are of thee an imperishable part — 
Thou Pagan paragon of love divine. 
What Power could from thee all self refine ? 

20. 

By thy creed, translated, thou art a star, 

Or constellation, but not so by mine. 

Thy apotheosis is loftier far 

Than stars and suns that round the Throne do shine. 

Thy soul on seas of light, in Glory's air. 

On blissful waves of melody divine — 

All sight — feeling — rising, rising still above. 

Is Immortality's Self, if God be Love. 



16 

21. 

Your majesty, what have I been doing? 

Have I delirium tremens quoad, 

That, thoughts on love I have been pursuing ? 

I'm like a naturalist run stark mad 

Who talks of terrapins and gophers wooing; 

Or funeral parson rigged in kilt and plaid — 

Huntington teaching honor to our youth. 

Or Marc Hanna intermeddling with truth. 

22. 

I believe that even Hanna might see — 

If in morals trained a century or two — 

The monstrous, mountainous absurdity 

Of thinking, dreaming, that the vulgar few — 

Unhappily too few — who bless our country 

And add to Europe's anarchistic crew 

By their hegira, ever think of aught 

On earth, except what can be sold or bought. 

2.3. 

Sir, if from Hanna's grapple you can fly, 
Or get your nostrils free from Alger's beef, 
Or from your sainted Carter take your eye — 
(Pray, Dear Emperor, ycu mud have relief — 
Two years' hard work on Carter's case — you'll die ! 
Think of the millionaires' and Hanna's grief!) — 
You'd wonder why these tramps should ever go away, 
Then, as a patriot, you'd wish that they would stay. 

24. 

Why do they go ? Not for poesy, love, art. 
Science, philosophy, freedom — not to learn. 
It's a voyage — journey sans head or heart — 
Mammas, to do the old duenna's turn. 
Papas, in the marriage trade to do his part. 
Daughters, the raw commodities that stern 
Parents swap for a rotten scion of nobility 
Grafted on plebeian stock to gTOw gentility. 

25. 

Oh! the pork-fed, strident, gawky Dears ! 
Ashamed to stay where papa " made his jack " 
By gambling, soap, hides, butchering steers. 
Beer, pills, ferrying, peddling from a pack ! 
Disgraced by trade they flood their breast with tears — 
"Oh! papa packed a wallet on his back!'' 
So, in silks, laces, diamonds, slippers number seven, 
They sail to buy a title, alias their Heaven. 



17 



26. 

"A title! My kingdom, (that is a million 
Pounds) for even a little Duke, Count, Earl ! 
Ah! Saint Chrispin! 1 would give a billion 
For a great big duke — yes, I'd give the world ! 
Duchess to be called ? lead the cotillion 
With dear Prince Macc'roni, and then to whirl 
In the delirium waltz with Count Sans Cullottes, 
And all this beef, beer, pack, origin, forgot? 

27. 

" And then, Oh heavens, tof be 'presented ! ' 

To the dame of children seventy two — 

(Each may be king or queen, although demented) — 

Sleep till blows the dinner horn— then pursue 

Racing, Balls, with Cavaliers Servented 

Who are, I hear, quite cheap and not a few — 

Spain's noblest blood, I'm told, with such pure intention, 

They give to married women only their attention. 

28. . . 

" Oh. I am so tired of Democracy," 

Says the erstwhile pauper, now the Newrich. 

" I intend to join the aristocracy 

And be a Count or Duke, I don't care which. 

Every thing's for sale to plutocracy, 

From maids and mothers who live by the stitch, 

To princesses and dukedoms in distress. 

The Presidency, the Pulpit, and the Press." 

29. 

Laban, to Isaac, fair Rebecca sold. 

Then cheated him with Leah who had sore eyes. 

Caesar, Octavia, to Anthony, to hold 

Him an ally: Austria thought it wise 

To take Napoleon in the royal fold 

By making of Louise, a sacrifice; 

Churchill, his sister's honor sold outright — 

Oh! God! why slumbered then thy avenging might ? 

30. 

His glory sprang from Arabella's shame. 

As fairest lilies grow in foalest mud; 

First, Marlboro, Earl; then he, Duke, became 

As honors rushed upon him in a Hood — 

None brighter than the glow of Mars' red flame. 

The brightest when on Blenheim's hill he stood. 

Meanwhile, his thievery surpassed belief, 

Till, bv solemn vote, the Commons named him "thief." 



18 

31. 

Can martial blare redeem so vile a man, 
A pander to the royal roue's last, 
Who, in his sight, made of his sister leman. 
Strumpet, harlot, trampling her in the dust, 
While he preferments took with miser hand- 
Gloating o'er the price of infamy the worst 
In Albion's blazoned royal lechery — 
A sister ruined by a brother's treachery ? 



Through near two centuries this noble blood 
Polluted and polluting had been strained. 
A feeble sprig in Blenheim palace stood, 
His fame by many open liaisons stained; 
His dukedom waning, he in desperate mood, 
No titled dame with money to be gained; 
To keep his all — ^his title-tag — -from being spilt, 
Did wed much cash, plus a plebeian Vanderbilt. 

33. 

This dicker of flesh and coin for station, 

Not being quite in line with ferrying — 

To Van, a title being a thin ration 

Compared to stocks, bonds, and railroad querying- 

Came near going overboard from passion 

At the thought of ten million burying. 

Without dividends, in a mortgaged palace — 

But, then, Van thought of his grisette in Paris. 

34. 

But, the measly, desperate Duke was firm; 

To taint his noble blood he must be paid. 

To make a duchess of a common worm 

Of the dust, and mockingly have it said, 

" Your heirs have in their blood the plebeian germ 

A class below England's seventieth grade 

The cross of a duke and a ferryman's daughter — 

A mixture of Johannesburg and dirty water," 

35. 

Roused Blenheim's little lord to raise the price 
Of his faded, worn, and rotten title. 
Though it was for sale, had been offered twice 
Ten times for less, still, the — not-a-little 
Burden in the trade, (the daughter), made a nice 
Question for the starving lord to whittle. 
So, he clung to his title, it being his all — 
Like Hop-O-My Thumb hugging a headless doll. 



19 
36. 

But "me Lud" had many unwitting allies, 
Jealous, bold bidders for the unclean thing. 
Who swarmed 'round it like gorgeous butterflies, 
And other flies with not such brilliant wing. 
This insect swarming should not cause surprise, 
As seldom 'tis, weak dukes and earls will bring 
Their grandpas' rusty clothes, too big for them to wear, 
For sale to our idiot "bones, rags, and hanks of hair.'' 

37. 

They know, these new-rich Dears do yearly flock 
Like migratoi\y birds to Europe's shores, 
Where pauper counts and dukes are kept in stock 
Like army mules worn out with grubs and sores, 
Or bogus mining shares offered at "bed-rock," 
Or green goods always sold behind the doors ; 
Chasing every tom-tit to a title tagged. 
With mercantile affection till the game is bagged. 

38. 

"Duke of Liaisons, what is your cash price 

For the adorable title of duchess? 

Papa has great wealth and it would be so nice 

To have two persons united, such as 

Your noble dukeship known so free of vice — 

And myself, who, (modestly), own as much as' 

Necessary to rebuild your ruined estate — 

And keep us snug unless you are insatiate." 

39. 

"Dear Misalliance, your frank proposal 
Overwhelms me quite — so unexpected — 
Yer knaw — your papa's cash at my disposal. 
Thanks — but — er — if you are connected 
As an appendix — and, as I suppose, all 
Your kin — er — not by my class respected, 
Your offer calls for serious reflection 
And I must make some family inspection. 

40. 

" Yer knaw — there is a very great distance 
Between the Old World and the New — I mean, 
Not in miles, but that piece de resistance 
Called Caste — the lofty Alps that stand between 
The refined and vulgar whose persistence 
To obtrude all their coarse, indecent, green 
Brood on the elite, would soon upturn societ3\ 
TVTiich, to our noble class, is cause of great anxiety, 



20 

41. 

"Because, we are society, — yer knaw — 

As your proposal shows. We're noble born, 

You are of the mass that toils far below, 

Get rich by trading in stocks, wheat, or corn; 

Then your ambition is to make a show, 

And treat your former friends with brutal scorn, 

Or swim the sea, as, the Hellespont, Leander, 

To buy the name of some reprobate young gander. 

42, 

" When a noble, one of the plebicities 
Condescends to take, as his lawful wife, 
She gives him social appendicitis — 
A malady that lingers during her life. 
And makes far more trouble than St. Vitus — 
In this climate. Its main effect is strife, 
Wherein the plebeian must act Little Jack Horner 
Whose place, yer knaw, was always in the corner. 

43. 

"You see — Mis — er — ^your name, please — ^Alliance?' 
Yes — Misalliance — at the social functions, 
You, a pleb, could not set at defiance 
The laws, as yours are by 'Injunctions.' 
You'd be bound to the strictest compliance — 
(As, in writing, we are with conjunctions,) — 
With the inviolable law of Precedence. 
As unchangeable as the law of decadence. 

44. 

"Besides Mis — er — alliance — you'd have to learn 

Some table manners. If at any day 

It might, at a state dinner, be your turn 

To eat, you should have but little to say — 

Don't guffaw — talk stridently, nor look stern. 

Give modesty at least a moment's play. 

I recall a banquet given in Washington, 

But, I hope the people there were not your bon-ton. 

45. 

"Pigtail, Minister from the Celestial Clime, 

In 'Stewart's Castle' a, Eeception gave. 

All moved quite smoothly until supper time 

When appetite — that villianous old knave — 

Author of our pains and many a crime, 

Seized the throng, young and old, the gay and grave 

And threw them on the \iands, a struggling mass, 

Like the cuirasseurs and horses in Ohain Pass. 



21 

46. 

"Silks and laces in ra^s and ribbons flew; 

Chignons took wings, looking like birds with hair; 

Some were squeezed till vermillion lips turned blue; 

Cursing and screams commingled filled the air; 

Trains trampled and torn did the carpet strew — 

And thus, 't is said, some — er — bustles were laid bare. 

By turns, women gasped, fainted, screamed, fanned and 

tugged, 
And some really grumbled because they had been hugged. 

47. 

''Of heads bald and glossy there was such rushing, 

It seemed a game of billiards in the air 

By players who'd not learned the art of pushing. 

As neither pocket or cai-rom was made there. 

Each ball hugged closely to tlie cushion — 

But the cushion was a bosom almost bare. 

As to the cushion I trust there was an error — 

Still, the old American gander is a terror. 

48. 

"So, Misappli" — "Missalliance, is my name" — 

"Thank you. Tliere is a vast deal to be said 

In this matrimonial trade or game. 

Your broker called on mine, but I'm afraid 

He — er — prevaricated — all the same 

Whatever the sum it must be cash paid. 

It's business — You wish it said you made a mash, 

I wish it known I got the cool, clean, cash." 

49. 

"My Dear Duke. I'm obliged ever so much. 

You have only to name your price in gold" — 

"My dear Misdefiance — er — it is such 

Bother — ^^'our name — er — yer knaw, yet I'm not old. 

But when your servants shall dub you 'Old Dutch,' 

I may remember without being told. 

I'll sell the name — as one of the common nouns 

Of the neuter gender, for two million pounds.'' 

50. 

The trade was quickly closed — What a clatter! 

Newport went wild — everywhere, "She's caught a duke!'' 

"No-o-o-o, she bought him." How the news did scatter! 

Gamins cried — "hextra-a — all about the puke ! " 

Heads craned from windows bawled "What is the matter?" 

Maids rushed, flew, gathered in ev'ry street and nook. 

Some said, "She lucky." some said, "It is too bad," 

Some said, "He is a rake," and some were very mad. 



22 

51. 

Who then felt, as nil Americans should, 

Whose noble sires did caste and title scorn? 

What mother wept for fallen womanhood 

With Freedom's dower, more than princess born; 

With virile, independent New-World blood 

That rests on conquered heights above a throne? 

Who grieved to see that proud neck bowed in slavery 

To a corrupt caste born of feudal knavery? 

52. 

I would rather gambol o'er Freedom's soil 

With the wild deer's lithe and elastic tread, 

The scion of a freeman grimed by toil. 

The honest winner of his daily bread. 

Where kings a cringing people ne'er despoil. 

Nor effete Caste their licensed vices spread. 

Than own, my child is such a stringy, small potato, 

I would pay millions for a man to elevate her. 

53. 

"I'd rather be a dog and bay the moon," 

Ixion chained forever on his wheel, 

A leper with no hope of dying soon, 

A beggar knowing I must die or steal, 

Prometheus scorching in the blaze of June, 

A harem slave and to a sultan kneel, 

Than buy a bankrupt, lech'rous, titled nonny 

Who looks down on me and takes me for my money. 

54. 

I would rather a monkey be and cling 

By the prehensile grasp of my own tail; 

A negro's mangy, summer dog and swing 

Precariously when 'possum seasons fail. 

Or any bug, save humbug, without wing, 

Or Jonah in the belly of a whale. 

Than appendix vermiforrnis to a manikin 

Swaddled solely in his mummy grandpa's rotten skin. 

55. 

There's a sequel to this duke affair — 

Being of millionaires it will delight you — 

Of the old Barons' feuds it wears the air. 

But there are no gory tales to fright you, 

As these barons were only "Bull and Bear." 

For full particulars I must cite you 

To that "Serbonian bog where armies whole have sunk," 

Where saints deliglit to gamble, but punish for a drunk. 



23 

56. 

The old Van and Jay were as line a brace 
Of pale Diana's knights as ever "took 
The road," or smuggled up the sleeve an ace. 
Corsairs they were of river, street and nook — 
Van, with fearless tread sought his victim's face; 
Jay sneaked stealthy like a ghoul or spook. 
Adopting Peggy Lob's sage plan of peculation — 
" Dout take with bluster, Paul, but by insiuivation.'' 

57. 

The lion with defiance seeks his prey, 

Hill, plain and valley trembling at his roar. 

The tiger, crouching in his lair by day. 

At night through brake and jungle creeps for gore 

With velvet tread and claws that flay 

Its unsuspecting victim seized before 

Aware that danger's near. Thus these two rav'ning beasts, 

Of widows, orphans, friends, supplied their bloody feasts. 

58. 

But two such monsters could not ravage long 
A field so narrow as Manhattan Isle 
Without meeting in encounter strong 
While in hot pursuit, in some close defile, 
Of one prey — Mercy, pity, right, or wrong 
Were sounds that only raised their robber-smile. 
And very soon the encounter came to pass, 
When both prowled forth Erie to seize en masse. 

50. 

Seeing the old lion on Erie's trail, 
Jay and Jim Fisk withdrew to Jersey's shore. 
As, on the Isle, was danger of the jail 
From the stuff to bait old Van they had in store. 
They printed shares and fed him by wholesale 
Until, sniffing tainted meat, he took no more. 
Gould and Fisk bloomed out in raiment rich and tidy — 
Fisk was slain by Stokes — Gould lived to make ''Black 
Friday." 

Thus rose the Gould and Vanderbilt vendetta, 
(Bloodless, as rogues ne'er fight with gun or sword,) 
Growing worse with time, like chronic tetter, 
Till Van was called to get his just reward — 
Whether, where all rich, in chains and fetter, 
Have blazing brimstone piled on by the cord, 
I leave to those who feel religious trammel 
From the riddle of the needle's eve and camel. 



24 

61. 

Like Freedom's bloody battle once begun, 

This rivalry to be the biggest hog 

On earth, was bequeathed by greedy sire to son. 

As "Bloody-noun" begets the pollivvog, 

As big potatoes oft to strings do run, 

As brightest dawns do sometimes end in fog, 

So, the pig-my Vans and Goulds, with their sires" appetite, 

Gluttony and hate, made but a feeble fight. 

62. 

How long this pigmies' battle might have raged, 

But for improvidential intervention. 

Is left for those whose wisdom is engaged 

In study of casualty, to mention. 

As truth by theology must be gauged, 

I, though a layman, make the suggestion — 

As "improvidential" must be something evil, 

The intervener must have been the Devil. 

63. 

When this micromaehy was at its height 
For the prize, so coveted, of gluttony, 
A monster on a sudden hove in sight — 
Another pachyderm, it was plain to see — 
But its proportions viewed in ev'ry light 
Raised a question as to its family — 
Whether Hippopotamus, or huge Essex hog. 
Or mammoth unclassified, just from the bog. 

04. 

Its weight in pounds was reckoned forty milliCii, 
Its greasy hide denoted feed of oil. 
Which caused a prophecy of weight, a billion. 
If from obesity it should not spoil. 
Or fall and burst in the war-cotillion 
Thart must open soon between Trusts and Toil. 
The poor looked on in terror and in wonder, 
.The rich, with envy of its power to plunder. 



'Twas soon agreed it was an Essex boar — 
Greediest, biggest, coarsest hog on earth. 
Through ev'ry pale and close and field it tore, 
Devouring, crushing, every thing of worth. 
Insatiate, its hungry grunt was "More!" 
Sparing not age nor children at their birth. 
When by its weight a foe it could not smash. 
It gave with bloody tusk a deadly gash. 



25 
66. 

This continent it swept, but not content, 
It swam the sea with oil caslc for propeller 
To desolate another continent. 
All exclaimed — "'The thing ne'er had its fellow !'* 
As it rocked and waddled, on ruin bent, 
The cry went up, "Its name is Rockyfellah!" 
At that a pallid terror seized the wond'ring crowd — 
t^ome fled, some clutched their cash, some wept, some prayed 
aloud. 

67. 

The little Vans and Jays in wild despair 
Of being the biggest hog, gave up the fight. 
Three-fourths their fat being water and air, 
On glimpse at this repulsive, beastly sight 
Of oil-fat, dragging belly about to tear. 
They took to yachts and fled to hide their spite. 
But failure to become the autocratic hog 
Did not quench the feud nor its movement clog. 

68. 

Thus, after a short detour to inspect 

A zoological monstrosity 

Which causes wisest statesmen to reflect, 

And naturalists much curiosity. 

And all who their country would protect 

From such greedy monsters, grave anxiety. 

Return we by the line of beauty to the Goulds — 

That is, resume the text on imbeciles and fools. 

69. 

When it was known that Vanderbilt had bought 
Blenheim Marlboro's consecrated skin 
So eagerly by new-rich fathers sought, 
Their daughters with the puny duke to wrap in — 
(That tadpole being by a gold hook caught — 
The mummy being all worth mentioning) — 
The feud blazed up again by burning envy fed. 
And the Goulds to water took to buy a titled bed. 

■ i 70. 

A thousand years ago when men were cattle 

And women even less, when with the land 

They went and conld not leave except to battle 

For their King, Baron, Lord, at bis command; 

When man — God's image — was a chattel. 

Or little less than angel, as his hand 

Was mailed and strong to hold his villeins to the mark, 

Or feudal tyranny had stamped out Freedom's spark, 



26 

71. 

From kings to feudal slaves were many grades 

Of caste — "Lord Keeper of the royal stud" — 

With us, in Saxon, hostler; chambermaids 

We call, were "Chamberlains" of noble blood, 

(Jailed Lords. There were Lords sinecure, as aids 

" To keep the royal conscience," when they could 

Find it; "Lord Keeper of the King's hounds, hares, quail, 

deer," 
And ev'ry mother's son of them was called a peer! 

72. 

A Count, as Europe's fancy live stock 's quoted 

In its registry of the breeds of man. 

Is fifth of the vagabonds supported 

By toilers, on the robber -bai'on plan. 

So surely thus are ease and lust promoted, 

Wonder 't is, the grades are not a. thousand. 

They stand in order — king, duke, marquis, earl, count — 

And others — but the entire stud I'll not recount. 

73. 

Among the lower grades of Caste in France 

Is "Keeper of the Castle" — Castellan. 

There may be other ranks he's in advance. 

Although a bailiff has a higher stand 

In that home of heraldry and the dance. 

It 's as plain as that the language Geniian 

Is three-fourths consonants, that Monsieur (Jastellane 

"Keeps the castle," as castellain is sire to chatelain. 



On a lean strip with bounteous chestnut growth 
A chateau stands — in Norman, mansion called. 
Its lord, old as a roysterer, though a youth. 
Had recently as keeper been installed. 
His lech'rous pranks were quite enough, in truth. 
For anxious watchful dames to be apalled. 
Troubles he had from long neglected debts 
And many sad, forsaken, young grisettes. 

75. 

Gaul's gay capital — epitome of man's 

Chief achievements good and bad, is near. 

Like Aladdin's diamond palace it stands — 

Both Freedom's cradle and an Empire's bier. 

From its bloody portals to other lands 

Rushed Redcapped Carnage awakening fear 

In ev'ry royal breast of universal death 

To the Tyrant's League to stifle Freedom's breath. 



2.7 
7G. 

Paris! Earth's microcosm! Murder and Art, 

Philosophy and war: religion, then 

Atheism: Reason, and love without the heart; 

Tyranny, then Liberty: Empire again, 

Monarchy, and Republic last ; the mart 

For fashions, roiu^s. bonbons, absinthe, brain, 

Cancan, opera, < 'amilles, giants and midgets, 

Where over Dreyfus the whole army had the fidgets. 

77. 

The glories of that rare historic spot 

The thoughts and feelings of gay Castellane 

Did not enlist. Chestnuts alone did not 

Aflford the cash his chateau to maintain. 

He lapped up follies and meanwhile forgot 

His growing debts, the grisettes and their pain. 

His oft repeated "out of fVinds" was growing stale. 

While creditors and grisettes were growing gruju and hale. 

78. 

"Not a theory — a (condition him 

Confronted." Necessity required a sale. 

Two things were left — the chateau and a limb 

Of the Keepers C^astellane' — a runty male. 

Tlie hope of working off the house was slim, 

But worse, to ship the son without a sail. 

So " Count," "a cutty sark," was given to the breeze. 

With guaranty its skirts would reach quite to the knees. 

79. 

Meanwhile a fleet yacht ballasted with gold 

To swap for family ballast, cleaved the foam. 

Like Argos for the Golden Fleece of old. 

A Baron's flag proclaims he is at home; 

So, spying the cutty sark, the yacht did hold 

Straight its prow to it and to anchor come. 

The count received the (lonlds with condescension — 

But gave the ballast his profound attention. 

80. 

When two are bartering, one for station. 

The other for its equal weighed in cash. 

It 's so hard to strike the true equation. 

That, pity 't is, they made so sweet a mash. 

One sees but "x" in her calculation. 

The other fears his price will cause a smash. 

Be firm, faint count! they'll buy you for your dirty rag, 

Though sticking like a blanket to a soreback nag. 



28 

81. 

To trace the shrewd negotiations thiough 

Might weary some. Besides, this commerce hicks 

The odor of Cupid's bower, the hue 

Of heaven, a trace of Dian's velvet tracks, 

Blushing Aurora's bosom veiled in dew 

When at Onon's loving touch she wakes; 

Or thoughts of Venus' long despairing chase 

For one lingering, dying, farewell embrace. 

82. I 

The Count thought his bawbee worth ten million — 
The yacht a whistle gave with a long wh-h-e-e-w. 
Then tacked as one chassez in cotillion, 
But kept the sark and keeper in full view. 
To the runt the sky then looked vermillion — 
So, he thought it best to fall a peg or two. 
The trade was closed on a five million whittle — 
He got the cash, she, a sybarite and title. 

83. 

Five million dollars to be called "Countess?" 
Oh! the superlatively wicked waste ! 
What good, or bad, it could do in bounties ! 
Then think of it — bartered away for "caste ! " 
'Twould enrich a hundred Southern counties; 
A billion ghosts 't would make old Charon pass. 
Wonder if Jay, seeing his ducats flying, heyday. 
Repents the damning villiany of " Black Friday ? " 

84. 

They're flying, like yellow old maids on wing, 

(I mean the pretty flowers of golden hue — 

Not the sweet Dears with lips without a sting 

"Who only fly to hear or tell what's new.) 

The Count, that's no account — a neuter thing — 

Scatters Anna's cash with a Titan's thew. 

What gratitude to Jay that beggar ought to feel! 

He should say Ben Hur's Magi's grace at every meal. 

85. 

It is said, (that is, "they say,") the Goulds have drawn 

A penurious pucker in Anna's purse, 

Tliat keeper-of-a-castle, starved, to warn, 

His lusts he must curb in or do much worse. 

But, as such vices are with a Noble born, 

His sole reformatory is a. hearse. 

Had I such a son-in-law, I'd either ship him. 

Or, in prayers for mercy, ask the Lord to skip him. 



29 



8G. 

Yet, it is believed by some, there is good 
lu all created things. Great is their faith 1 
Mosquitoes are phlebotomists, our blood 
To keep from spoiling. Serpents in our path, , 

Other crawling things when we're in sleepy mood, 
(Though Eve's serpent is mooted with great wrath) — 
And a thousand such, are "blessings in disguise,'' 
Still, Christians these as blessings do not recognize. 

87. 

Then, there's virtue in the castle-keeper's son. 
For, when his rations were curtailed, his spirit 
Rose in rebellion — something must be done I 
The only capital he had of merit 
Was. like Narcissus', self adoration. 
So, out of that shrewdly he did ferret 
A monopoly with which no one would meddle — 
With photos of himself he set out to peddle. 

88. 

A woman's heart set on Societ.y 

Upsets her head in ev'ry direction. 

She winks at deeds of slack propriety 

Which, erstwhile, she viewed with close inspection. 

Few things are worse than passion for variety 

That, to a loyal husband, brings dejection. 

And when a woman knows, "tigs grow not on thistles," 

She should know, hogs have hereditary bristles. 

89. 

When a "cracker" girl yearns for a title. 

The title is all she sees — as a dime 

Near the eye obscures the sun. A little 

Scurvy, shrimpy owner — even a crime 

Or two — for these — she cares not a tittle — 

Her sole purpose is "to get there on time." 

And with plenty of money in her pocket 

She sets the sky ablaze like a whizzing, spangled rocket. 

90. 

Oh, the wrecks of fortune, broken hearts. 

The agonizing look of black despair. 

The convulsive gasp, as when life departs. 

The desolation nothing can repair; 

Tlie mocking voice. "Too late," that strikes, and starts 

The wound afresh, echoing everywhere. 

When women, vain, weak, to counsel bid defiance. 

And with titled, paui)er roues form alliance. 



30 

91. 

There is another small patriot class 
I can not from their quality neglect. 
Being self-segregated from the mass 
Of Adam's seed, and royally select, 
They'd think it lese majeste were I to pass 
Them in silence; at least they might suspect 
The public cannot see, or loth to recompense, 
Their lack of common decency and common sense. 

93. 

The subject we must contemplate just here 

Is so saturate with tearful sadness, 

Like Antony over Great Caesar's bier, 

I must pause. When I began this madness, 

Little did I dream I should shed a tear. 

Besides its grandeur causes dizzintss; 

And, before we enter on this great discussion. 

We must, among the stars, retire for diversion. 

93. 

Come ! Respite you need from Nurse-Hanna's lap. 

Three years' ding-dong of " Kock-a-bye-baby 

In the tree top" — and hourly taking paj). 

And taffy from Lease, the populist lady. 

And bad advice and lectures kept on tap; 

Being held in durance close and shady. 

Will dwarf mind and soul — let's take a heavenward llight, 

Where there's neither Hanna, politics, nor night. 

94. 

Oh ! the grandeur, the glory of the scene 

We gaze on! Here man's boasted, sublime tongue — 

The mark of rule Divinity set between 

Him and the brute, is useless, dumb, undone. 

His groping thought is but the finite mean 

'Twixt nothingness and God. Imagination, 

Soaring to explore, beat against these stars 

Icy, voiceless, unresponsive as the bars 

95. 

On which the eagle wastes its plumes and blood. 
Ere and since ( 'haldeans, tending by night 
Their flocks, challenged this silent host that flood 
The universe with a pale, spectral light — 
Each fixed as at Creation's dawn it stood — 
Its Jamp with undiminished lustre bright. 
And returning, humbled, repeats the hymn — 
"AVhat is man that Thou art mindful of him ?" 



31 



9G. 

The stars! Jewels in the Almighty's crown! 
If you 'd gaze on gems in infinity — 
Diamonds — sapphires — rubies — look around ! 
From chaos they were fashioned in a day. 
See those vast globes of light in yon profound ! 
There's burning Vega's lambent, sapphire ray; 
ilere are ruby-suns blazing on His brow 
Through Eternity as we behold them now. 

97. 

Ye Pilgrims, mute, through endless space! what power 

Over mortal destiny do ye wield ? 

Can it be, in man's helpless, natal hour, 

To your mastery he must humbly yield, 

Be it baleful or benign, and lower 

Sink, or higher rise, in his future field 

Of honor, or of suffering ? Is there Fate 

In you'' approving smile, or your malignant hate ? 



If not, whence the universal creed 

Of heathen, pagan. Christian, Islam, Jew, 

That on yon atom planet, as ye speed. 

Some, blessings shower, some, disasters strew, 

As tares the wicked sow, the good, good seed ? 

AS'hy treuibles Egypt at pale Sirius' view ? 

Did \r war against Sisera on Zaanaim plain ? 

Were by ye, or liarak, his valiant thousands slain? 

99. 

And modest Pleiades! ye Nuns of Heaven! 

(xroupiug so sisterly, veiled by sorrow's mist 

From loss of one of your vestal Seven — 

No wonder, ye our sympathies enlist. 

As God has said, to ye has be( n given 

" Sweet inriuences " no mortal can resist. 

If it be, God so spoke to Job, even though in ire — 

"Let God be Truth and every man a liar." 

100. 

Or, are ye, infinite, starry ho'st! 

But insensate matter as is yon earth. 

Peopled, as it, with teeming millions lost 

In wonder o'er the purpose of their birth 

And destiny, who their divinity boast. 

And count, infinitely above your worth. 

Their own, as we, though as grass withering in a day. 

Claim that death but keeps the door to immortality? 



32 

101. 

Heavens ! what is that hoarse, gourd-sawing sound 

That breaks upon my ear at intervals ? 

Is it the tones that in the spheres abound ? 

Its roar is lilve Venetian carnivals; 

Now, like an ungreased cartwheel turning round; 

Now, it hath the nielod.v of caterwauls. 

By Allah! while I am here the stars adoring, 

His majesty is majestically snoring! 

102. 

"Mare, I think you are very hard on me; 

That mortgage debt I feel is more than paid — 

Is this debt to run to eternity ? 

Time, 1 was nominal president made 

By you and money used in bribery, 

But you are president — I am your shade — 

Tou've had all patronage, each office filled, 

Driven, bullied, pulled and dragged me as you willed. 

103. 

" r pray you, let me get upon my feet; 
Do not thus grind me into nothingness; 
There are some promises I wish to meet; 
A few more negroes with offices to bless — 
You know they are to you companions sweet. 
l^t me further the entire South distress 
By negro masters; it will revive the days 
Of Reconstruction and set Lynch Law ablaze." 

104. 

Snor o r t ! *' Really 1 believe I must have slept — 
Did you speak ?" — No, Proconsul, but you did. 
"Yes, I dreamed a human beast upon me crept 
And all my energy and manhood fled. 
1 fell upon my knees and sorely wept. 
But to all humanity it was dead. 
The lookers-on pelted me with contempt and joke 
Until, in a desperate attempt to rise, F woke." 

105. 

You have the gift to dream realities ; 

The wonder is, you have not snored before, 

And waked to learn wherein true manhood lies, 

And those virtues all patriots adore. 

But, you are not yet fitted for the skies — 

So, lest you sleep again and dream and snore. 

We will return to earth, you to Hanna's claims, 

I to my adoration of the Royal Dames. 



33 
100. 

Oh! ye Immortal Nine of divine song ! 
NVhat measure of praise have I rendered ye, 
That ye liave reserved, through the ages long, 
This "exceeding weight of glory" for me? 
Homer sang of Troy, its siege, Ajax, the strong — 
Achilles' wrath, then, his brutality — 
Land gods, sky gods, Aeneas' filial duty, 
rluno's ox eyes and Helen's matchless beauty. 

107. 

Virgil took up that wondrous tale of war, 

First — made his hero break queen Dido's heart. 

Who, through tears and sighs, laid her bosom bare, 

And being scorned, chose Lethe as her part. 

He, last, a woman won in duel fair 

By, her lover's breast, piercing with a dart. 

He, though goddess-born, was son of mortal sire 

And, hence, beneath the subjects of my lyre, 

108. 

Tasso's one heroine — a duke's lone sister — 

He immortalized, and for it went to jail. 

Though she swore, he never even kissed her. 

If she had been within the royal pale. 

As mine are, and he had sung to enlist her 

Heai*t, there's no doubt his hide had been for sale. 

Ye love sick swains! if ye'd not be jugged or throttled, 

'Gainsr each royal nmid keep your ISluses bottled. 

109. 

a, 

Dante's heroine was Beatrice — 

Adored on earth — angel to him in hell. 

But, Beatrice was only common clay. 

Goethe placed Marguerite under the spell 

Of his Devil, for Faust with her to play. ^ 

Petrach wrote books of lyric "Rime" to tell 

For a gentleman's wife his love — the degree 

Of gentleman below a king being seventy three. 

110. 

Virgil " Sang of arms" and so must I now. 
His were of war, rapine, conquest, slaughter; 
I, of arms royal, pink, rosy, or like snow — 
Though royalty may have wings — it ought to — 
As gentlemen are seventy grades below 
The exalted rank of a king's daughter, 
And a gentleman is but a little lower 
'thixn the angels^ — Now, to my lady's bower — 



34 

111. 

oil! foi* the power to think in satiu, 

To gjve birth to thoughts in royal purple, 

Robed in melitluous Italian Latin, 

Tender as the cooing of the turtle, 

Christened with dew of the rosy matin, 

Charming as to Venus was the myrtle, 

To sing of America's Royal Dames 

And raise from Lethe's depths their unknown names, 

112. 

As, when a body's to be raised that's drowned. 
Near the watei''s surface the cannon boom, 
The best effect is from the loudest sound, 
From my weak voice I fear no good can come 
To the Royal Dames in their dark profound; 
And they must be patient with their doom — 
Though like Blind Tom they make the ceiling ring. 
Then clap in chorus and their own praises sing. 

113. 

Through keen investigation microscopic. 
The new Society of Royal Dames, 
With motives purely philanthropic, 
(From sweet charity, I omit their names), 
Have long discussed the absorbing topic — 
Whether through kitchen-kin they have just claims 
To the royal bacillus in their blood — 
Engendered at some date siuce Noah's Hood. 

114. 

With Stoic inditference as to source — 

Tile only brand required being "royal" — 

(It might be after a lawful divorce — 

There are games not played according to Hoyle) — 

The Dames have traced its meandering course 

With filial devotion as truly loyal 

As a mariner's hunt for yesterday's wave. 

Or Mark Twain's search for his fa.tlier Adam's grave. 

115. 

Being patriots they exhausted, first, 
America's royal archives for a start. 
To the Tuscaroras there was a burst; 
Some, on brown Pocahontas set their heart: 
Their rise in Sitting Bull some gladly nursed. 
While others chose Tecumseh for their part. 
Some Tomochichi sought for their paternity. 
Rejecting Osceola for despised modernity. 



35 

116. 

For Montezuma there was a scramble. 

Being centuries old and very rich. 

If bacillus could be found to amble 

From his loins, ambition's loftiest niche 

Would be j-ained — rank and wealtli in one gamble — 

Far better than to trace it to a tlitch 

Of bacon, ferryboat, rat-trap, pills, or even soap. 

Though, soap, next to (xodliness, is fallen mortal's hope. 

117. 

Hut, the royal Indian conld not write: 

Tumuli contain his only archives — 

liones, pots, arrowheads, and little things hight 

His gods; and, then, he had so many wives 

And concubines, that to search through the night 

Of centuries and fifty thousand lives 

For bacillus, made tiieir embrlologist despair, 

Throw up his job, and tell them they must delve elsewhere. 

118. 

Tlien, next, Dahomey's sable king they sought. 
Distinctions, there are none in royal blood, = 

Into race, color, rank — so we are taught — 
Of all God's gifts it is the one thing good, 
Whether Fee Jee, or British, matters naught. 
All this our Dames by instinct understood. 
For, "he is a wise scni who knows his father" 
Fits not royalty, but plebeians rather. 

119. 

But, Dahomey's king being strictly moral, 

lake Oeorge the Third after he grew insane, 

Produced the ethnological (juarrel — 

How royal Dames could come of that black strain. 

Who, far from black, were not even sorrel ? 

Although that i)edigree could cause no stain — 

Being royal — still the father being black 

Might suggest Fraud — so the Dames quit the negro's track. 

120. 

By pigment baffled they to Europe fled 
Where royalty is common as pig-tracks 
In Iowa— big and small, but, as I've said. 
Size is not reckoned. Royalty's self lacks 
Nothing— all at the public's trough are fed 
And rock in howdahs on the people's backs. 
Loll, dawdle, gamble, cry, "I am the State!" 
Drive fools to war, internmri-y, and ])ro]iagate. 



36 

121. 

There, too, our royal Dames much trouble found; 

For royal stock is registered with eare — 

(Just as our colts and calvt»s — "thoroughbreds" all round.) — 

To guard the sacred throne against an heir 

Not royally begot. Others abound, 

But, their names are on the "bar sinister." 

To wear a crown half-breeds are impotent 

Till made wholeblood by Act of Parliament. 

122. 

To say the search to find their plebeian names 
Enrolled among these royal thoroughbreds 
Was disappointing to our royal Dames, 
Would put caps with bells on their little heads. 
They know, the mother-in-law, on the Thames, 
Of all Europe, guards too well the nuptial beds 
For even fairies to steal a sainted royal kid 
And smuggle a mongrel pleb under the coverlid. 

123. 

Oh, the indefatigability 
Of woman when in pursuit of trouble — 
Gewgaws, rainbows, borrowed gentility 
Unsubstantial as a dream or bubble — 
That break the placid soul's tranquility; 
Mistaking, for the golden grain, the stubble. 
Dropping the real for the shadows in life's stream. 
Knowing, that, though &few things are what they seem. 

124. 

There was the Golden Fleece and Jason's chase; 

There's an open sea at the frozen Pole; 

There's a bag of gold at the rainbow's base; 

There's imagined pleasure in stolen gold; 

The millionaire thinks there is happiness 

In the hoarding of wealth he can not hold; 

There are waking dreams and castles in the air — 

And the heart 's the grave of Love that perished of despair; 

125. 

There are kings who sigh for the peasant's ease. 

There are queens who envy the Nut-Brown Maid, 

There are crowns of thorns — so just Fate decrees — 

On thrones with diamonds and gold inlaid; 

There are purple robes mocking trembling knees 

From dread of vengeance "that maketh afraid;" 

There are smiles through tears from hearts in deepest woe, 

As clouds of darkest hue reflect tlie brightest bow; 



37 

126. 

There are palaces rich in marble halls 

Where sires for centuries, in marble stand, 

Where canvas that si)eaks looks down from the walls, 

And virtu that's gathered from every land; 

And minions that cringe when the master calls — 

For it \s a noble's voice that gives the command — 

Where Castle is as hard as their marble floor, 

That only weak women and fools adore. 

.127. 

And in those places are dungeons drear 

Without grated bars, bolts, or iron door, 

That to a loving heait are more gloomy far 

Thau exile on a lone, wild, desert shore; 

And mocking- words in tones that pierce the ear 

And stab the heart till Love can love no more. 

What, there, is life but lingering, gilded death ? 

What, but poisoned flowers hiding the corpse beneath ? 

128. 

Yet, a title! A tag pinned on to flatter — 

Damn wife or sister to a lech'rous bed, 

Or because Salisbury dropped her garter, 

Or to save a tottering royal head. 

Or buy a rebellious subject's daughter. 

Or place some favored lover in the lead . 

E'en to read Wales' titles we must pause for breath. 

He, "whose approadi is danger, whose ( ontact — death.*' 

129. 

There are two gates through which ye Dames, 
Your paradise lamented can i-egain — 
Lost not through curiosity that inflames 
Desire, but from being born plebeian — 
This is the base calamity that shames 
You so and gives your va^-ant heads such pain. 
The "■ Morganatic," one gate is called — the other — 
Really, I prefer to whisper it to your brother, 

130. 

Or sigh it through long distance telephone, 

Or iyicog. write it out at your request. 

And, even then, wnte in bashful undertone. 

Hinting and skipping, leaving you to guess 

The much implied by the mickle I make known. 

In order not to inflame your I'oyal zest, 

r 'd mention omit of Henry and Anne Boleyn, 

Because their bastard child, by law, was made a queen. 



38 

131. 

T beg you'll note the comma after ''child," 

Because, without it, "child bv law" might mean 

Lawful child. That would make e'en Queen Bess smile, 

Who knew she ne'er could be of England queen 

Till her veins were purged of the Boleyn bile 

That tainted Henry's immaculate strain. 

By Act of Parliament — a tictitious flushing — 

To purify a. bastard for the royal cushion. 

132. 

The "Morganatic" seems your only hope; 

Still, like the way to Hell, it's very broad, 

And many there be that sin within its scope. 

As every royal buck first takes this road 

And leaves some Agnes Bernauer to grope 

To death where, a social (pieen, she once abode — 

Nor wife, nor widow, her children fatherless. 

Chained in the viewless vault of shame's vile duress. 

133. 

As you're not so royal as to receive 

Parental recognition from a throne, 

And as the third or "other" way might grieve 

Your whole connection — were it widely known — 

The question is, would it not be best to leave 

The " Morganatic," too, than to have "blown 

In the bottle," to prove it genuine, the name 

Of some old dead maternal you would thus defame? 

134. 

So it seems to me — that is — so I feel — 

But you and I are two — praise be to (iod ! 

I am an Ameri<an too proud to kneel 

To aught tliat lives, or that has ever trod 

This dust that doth our common mortal yield — 

Save one whose worshipjved form 's beneath the sod; 

Whose prayers, blessings, gentle, radiant soul, peaceful lips. 

Are still my inspiration, my life's apocalypse. 

135. 

Ah! fair Dames! would that you yourselves could see 

As others see you — You're afflicted sore, 

But all unconscious of your malady. 

From want of occupation life's a bore. 

On Fortune's tide you've drifted to a sea 

Whose waveless waters sleep upon its shore 

Barren, lifeless, — not one green bough attracts the dove 

The heart sends forth in search for sympathy and love. 



39 
136. 

On that arid, lonely, leafless, desert waste 
You've sulfered Nature's penalty — you're blind. 
Our country's heroes, martial triumphs past, 
Imperishable treasures of the mind. 
The Shepherd to all nations, though the last. 
Leading the way where freedom all ean And; 
"Time's noblest ott'spring." the tirst whose gentle word 
Bade woman rise and reign the equal of her lord, 

137. 

You can not see, but, visions, as you dream. 

Of ribbons, garters, coronets, stars. 

Of polluted rags that gorgeous to you seem — 

Badges of man's woes, of iron grates and bars 

And clanking chains and dungeons where no gleam 

Of light or hope appeared. No suffering mars. 

No poverty, distress, nor death, disturbs your child's delight 

When the mirage of a royal bed rises on your sight. 

138. 

I am not your doctor, father, brother. 

Still, take this prescription — Go to work! 

Forget that corpuscle which your mother 

Had not, could not have — unless the good Turk, 

Or Wales, a Louis, Henry, Oeorge, or other 

Saint, the royal fence and one commandment broke. 

Which, to say, is lese majede- -scandalum, magnatum. 

Which means, truth's a lie when told by the substratum. 

139. 

Bill Astor's only service to the State 

Was when he emigrated sine die. 

Follow his example — emigrate 1 

Formed of trampled but unkneaded clay 

Of which God ne'er made mortal strong or great, 

Of the serf's dull strain, accustomed to obey, 

(As slaves were proudest owned by masters high in station) 

He kneels, the fawning subject of a royal nation. 



Farewell! fair Dames ! When you depart, 
May Fate attend you to the shore 
Where joyfully you date your start 
In purple. Fortune from you tore. 

Many a queen at birth has been 
By fairies from her mother torn ; 
And vulgar plebeians in between 
Tlie roval linen have been borne. 



40 

Oiii' sighs shall fill your sagging sails, 
Our tears the ocean gently swell, 
As we in gi-ief recount the tales 
Of woe, your royalty, befell. 

We'll dream a story of a child 
Of royal blood, with golden hair, 
With dini})led cheeks, angelic smile. 
And fairer than a lily 's fair, 

That to a. bed of violets strayed. 
Hard by a murmuring, crystal brook. 
And as she with them gently played, 
They on her radiant face did look, 

And gazing on her eyes so blue, 
They thought them sisters lost in snow- 
So more than heavenly was their hue, 
And brighter than the sapphire's glow. 

The listless wavelets dancing by. 
Enraptured with the fairy scene, 
Lingered to chant their lullaby — 
Sighing in tones of love between. 

The birds enamoured gathered near. 
Charmed by Beauty's magic power. 
As erst familiar, without fear, 
They sang for Eve in Eden's bower. 



Nearer the vision they gladly pressed 
In joyous transport wildly gay; 
And when she smiled, they felt caressed 
And sang a choral roundelay. 

The violets waved their perfume "round — 
Fit incense to a form divine- 
Till flowers and birds and air and ground 
Became enchantment to her mind. 

Then Somnus with his poppy wand. 
Envious of a scene so bright. 
Too dull to feel emotions fond, 
Waved down the sable veil of night. 

The crystal truants ceased their song. 
Rushed babbling, rippling on their way; 
When questioned why they lingered long. 
By stone and moss that bid them stay. 



41 

Answered in gleeful tone that they 
A vision heavenly had seen. 
And duty summoned them to pay 
Due homage to their earthly queen. 

As gently drooped her golden head, 
Her tresses straying o'er her breast — 
She seemed, upon lier purple bed, 
A child of Paradise at rest. 

Just then a gypsy hag appeared — 
A lowborn infant in her arms — 
Mumbling low some mystie word 
To bind the child by spells and charms. 

Crooning, chuckling, the hag then laid 
The base born bantling on the bed — 
A change of rags foi' purple made. 
And with the queen to darkness fled. 

140. 

It's within the range of possibility 

That one, or more, or all, of you may be 

Lineal sprigs of that kidnapped, with ability. 

After parliamentary purging — {vide 

The stanza explaining this facility 

For making queens to order, one degree 

Only wanted) — to climb a golden throne — 

Just prove that child became a mother and, your own! 

141. 

Dearest Dames, though I once have sobbed Farewell — 

Still I linger, unwilling to dapart. 

There is in your name, or royal blood, a spell 

That holds me bound — the prisoner of my heart. 

Could I Fate control, here would I gladly dwell — 

Sighing like Bonnivard o'er freedom's part — 

Knowing this my only chance, though through the world I 

seek, 
To scratch my back against a royal sapling — so to speak. 

142. 

But, this stanza although bedewed with tears, 
"Positively shall my last appearance be," 
You of untold age, I with shade of years 
Length'ning eastward, have one destiny — 
The grave — So sha])e your end, when Death appears — 
When thrones, titles, rank, wealth, ai'e vanity — 
That Christ's poor shall stand a breathing monument 
To lives for man's ennobling and freedom spent. 



42 

143. 

l^ostseiipt — AAlien I said "this stanza is the last" 
You Ivnew that embraced, to make good measure, 
A postscript of length from bow-sprit to mast — 
A royal preserve of woman's treasure — 
A kind of dessert after meats are past, 
A ragout of scandals full of pleasure, 
Bearing to your letters, either seen or read, 
The proportion a comet's tail has to its head. 

144. 

N. B. — I'll whisper just one word of Wales — 

What 's left of him is very mortal clay. 

In the swim, he 's the bull 'mong Europe's whales, 

I 'd give you a card for royal evtre 

Were he at all punctilious with females. 

Besides, I have refused to let him "play 

In my backyard" since his cheat at baccarat 

And that Mordaunt affair. So hon voyage ! Ta-Ta ! 

145. 

I read a cruel joke some mouths ago — 

A wicked thrust at Philadelphia. 

The joker meant to teach how vei*y slow 

Those " Brotherly Love " and (Quaker people are. 

'T was bad enough their retrograde to show. 

To say that they recite at evening prayer, 

" Now I lay me down to sleep," and then they say — 

"Lord! I pray Thee! wake me \\\) in yesterday." 

146. 

But this slanderous, malicious scribbler said. 

That Philadelphia had that morning heard 

The grievous news that ('harles, the First, was dead; 

That a band of p>irates. without a word. 

Laid him on a block and cut olf his head. 

Spattering his blood on his royal beard: 

That the Episcopal clergy and the Royal Dames 

Met to mix their tears with those of kin upon the Thames. 

147. 

In surplice, alb, and silken gowns they sang 
" Miserere cordia ! Te laudamus ! 
Te domino !" until the rafters rang; 
"Par nobile ! Tu, ('arolus Primus, 
Et Johannus Brownus whom thugs did hang; 
" Dominus, Carolus ! do not condemn us — 
We've done our best — news of your death took us by sur- 
prise. 
And being of royal blood it takes us a month to rise." 



43 

148. 

The wretch I not to respect the pangs of grief 

Over a relative's death so very recent — 

One who, of all earth's martyrs, was the chief I 

It was so naive and supremely decent 

To give their burdened, breaking hearts relief 

From hypertrophy caused by an event 

Only two and one-half centuries ago — 

Oh! how brief a time to heal true royal woe I 

149. 

How beautiful is this strong devotion 

To one who did Parliament twice prorogue 

That he might make "forced levies" of the nation — 

So like the Trusts and taiiff here in vogue 

With pimps of royalty in high station. 

This strain of clergy is in the catalogue 

Of Cromwell's and of Washington's bitter foes. 

Eager to slay Democracy with traitorous blows. 

150. 

There are some minor patriot classes — 
Such as Wliitney who publicly declares 
He'd ratlier fleece ducats frcmi the masses 
Than country serve, or "climb the golden stairs." 
His chief ambition 's stock — including asses — 
Racing, dining, spinning with blooded mares. 
Trying to play Warwick, in making Presidents. 
^^Mtll treason to party friends, his only recompense. 

151. 

Saved from pi'ecarious Briefs by wedding dower 
Reaped by wife's brother in "The Standard (Ml ;" 
Then by Plutocracy given power 
Of Secretary that dispensed with toil. 
He shone resplendent for a garrish hour; 
But, soon, avarice led him to despoil 
By gambling in stocks — not trading in stock alone — 
And now the statesman jockies. running with Jockey 
Sloane. 

152. 

There's Webster's great successor, Force-Bill Lodge — 

A little Lodge in a "vast wilderness"' 

When in Webster's seat. His joy is to dodge 

To Britain's feet to lighten his distress 

Caused by America's vulgar hodge-podge. 

And base mortality's unjust duress. 

Here, he daubs in history just to damn the South, 

There he damns America bv word of mouth. 



44 

153. 

Yet, strange, he thinks the negro is his equal — 

A view in which New England 's in accord, 

If we can judge opinions by their sequel. 

The ethnic barrier set by the Lord, 

They think, old Adam kicked down when he fell, 

Or fell when slavery perished by the sword; 

So, there, by law, black coons and white Yankee gooses 

Wed and breed a mongrel batch of bronze pappooses. 

154. 

There's Russell Sage — there never was but one. 

If God made him. He surely did repent 

As when He'd "made man'' and he had begun 

His evil ways. But Sage cannot relent 

From weaving snares like webs by spiders spun. 

As, from others' woes comes his sole content. 

Masked in honor's garb he chuckles as he crawls 

To suck his victim's blood through "Puts and Calls." 

156. 

He learned his morals in the gambler's den 

And puts in practice all he learned and more; 

Even his stomach cheats — so loth to spend 

Of millions vast a cent. His dismal door 

'Gainst alms is barred ; but, as if to make amend. 

He'll thousands give in fees and costs before 

Justice or pity show to one his coward soul 

Threw in the jaws of Death to save his carcass whole. 

156. 

Carcass, did I say? Y'es, that's true in part — 

Dead to humanity ; to mercy, dead ; 

To pity — the weeping passion of the heart; 

Dead to shame — whose banner flushing red 

Never waves where Honor and Truth depart; 

Dead to country — a cadaver save his head — 

The den where vultures, leeches, vampires, cormorants live, 

Ever gnawing, clawing, sucking, tearing, crying " Give." 

157. ■ 

There's Belmont, (Perry), of millions legatee. 
Therefore, a Gotham's Solon on finance. 
His purse was once to Congress sent, and he 
As purser went along. A circumstance — 
(Bayard's gratitude to B's pere) and the. 
Rumor that B. knew Turkey is not Prance, 
Induced Carlisle to make Belmont figure-head 
To " Foreign Affairs" — his duty being to read 



45 



158. 

< 'aptions to bills referred and make Reports. 
Then, Republicans clawing had rare fun — 
Mussing the Chairman, as when a cat resorts 
To tossing a mouse and letting it run. 
His God is gold, his hardest labor, sports. 
His creed — Gotham, country, and he are one, 
Yet he can count the number of dinner courses, 
And knows somewhat of Vanderbilt divorces. 

159. 

There 's Sherman, John, who entered public life 
In borrowed clothes, or, boaght with borrowed gold. 
Now — Chairman of Finance he quiets money strife 
And, then, our Treasury's treasure he would hold — 
Facile to beat the drum or blow the fife — 
And from each "coigne of vantage," coin could mold. 
With Aladdin's ring and Midas' touch combined 
Where'er he turned, vast hidden wealth he'd find, 

160. 

The " Paris Conference " he turned to coin ; 

" The Avenue " to a surface railroad, changed ; 

Tough Wall Street, to a juicy tenderloin; 

Its " risks," in ducats, presto, round him ranged, 

Till the ignorant thought, "he must purloin,'' 

WTiereas, 't was only want for w' ealth exchanged — 

Only Midas' touch that turned all things to gold 

That others gain through honest traffic bought and sold, 

IGl. 

Hut, Midas had another gift, his ears — 

So large and long, they reached high in the air. 

He kept them hid for many grievous years, 

Yet, Midas was a multi-millionaire. 

When you made John " The State," so it appears, 

A Spanish Don while coying with his hair. 

Found his ass's ears, and — John began aloud to bray 

Your secrets, and you had to cudgel him away. 

162. 

Hell, or I'd better say— Wall Street is full 
Of such gorgeous — no — gorged patriot fellows. 
'^Vho love tJieir country for the venal "pull" 
Tliey have on it wlien trade falls in the "yellows." 
Morgan, Cleopatra-yachting being dull. 
Sold his yacht, warranted safe in shallows. 
To save his bleeding country from being lost. 
At a sacrifice of just three times its cost. 



46 

1«3. 

When War's dread tocsin through our country swept 
And 3^eomen young and old deserted plow, 
Anvil, forge, briefs, and shops; and mothers wept 
And prayed; and lovers spoke through tears their vow. 
And pressed a farewell kiss on lids that slept 
Not, from fond distress, resting like veils of snow 
On beds of \aolets; when the serried host 
Was gathering swift from mountain, valley, lakes and 
coast, 

164. 

Ye Gods! it was a glorious sight to see 

These Wall Street patriots panting for the fray ! 

They swore by Mammon — "Cuba shall be free" — 

If sisters, cousins, aunts, could win the day. 

And forthwith laid their trains of strategy. 

^'Battle's magnificently stern array" 

Alone describes the terror of their front 

^A'hen army contracts fat they marched out to hunt. 

165.: 

Armed cap-a-pie they rushed to find the foe. 

Their flying, rumbling Pullmans shook the ground. 

The portent of this thunder Spain did not know — 

Americans only trembled at the sound, 

Who'd felt the weight of these patriots' blow 

On their solar plexus in many a round. 

(If they could trap Spain into one speculation 

She'd be skinned — but learn the science of ])eculation.) 

166. 

Round Alger and Long these patriots swarmed. 
Clamoring for front places in the ranks. 
When, by their fiery ardor Long was warmed. 
And for Boss Hanna had expressed due thanks, 
(Though, for the Treasury he felt alarmed). 
He spoke: "Ye, Veterans of National Banks 1 
HeaA-en has strangely lengthened out your days — 
Yet, we read — Inscrutable are His ways! ' 

1(J7. 

"Your zeal, your wealth and country to defend. 

Your skill in breeding monetary crises; 

To forestall Congressmen who soon would spend 

The sui-plus in pensions and other vices: 

Your eagerness, for bonds, millions to lend: 

Your patriotism in raising prices 

To teach the poor there's health in fasting — 

For these, receive Boss Hanna's thanks everlasting. 



47 
168. 

" And ye ! victors on many a golden field ! 

Heartless by a thousand speculations, 

Imbued with courage that will never yield 

Till the last hope of rich peculations 

With your last dime expires — Ye! who conceal 

Beneath the guise of trade-occupations 

Swindling, gambling, thieving — ev'ry knavish game — 

Whose cheeks are Harveyized impervious to shame, 

''Your quii'k response to your emperor's call, 
Deserting loaded dice, watered stock and den, 
Scenting afar a. quicker, bigger haul" — 
(At that there rose a choral shout — "Amen.") — 
" By contracts for supplies both large and small. 
Wherein to stealage sweet there is no end, 
Revive the glory of the times called olden 
When Robin Hood sold Edward, king, his own goods 
stolen. 

170. 

"Being the Lord's self-anointed, to ye 

Is given the key to knowledge of finance. 

Y^our priestly office enables you to see 

When cotton, stocks — ^aJl produce — should advance, 

Or fall in price, just as you may decree. 

Ye vv'ere ordained to make producers dance 

To any figure, jig, or "break-down," you may call. 

It being the measure of your intended haul. 

171. 

"Y^our hands, like lilies, neither sow nor spin, 

Y^et reap all wealth from fields that others sow. 

Y^'our priestly occupation is to skin, 

Y''et, keep your sacred ephods white as snow; 

Y^our sacrifices with the 'lambs' begin. 

But where they end no one but God can know — 

Murders, suicides, burglaries — all crimes that fill 

Prisons, gallows, graves, bear witness to your skill. 

172. 

"Y'on marble halls — ^;your gilded gamblers' dens — 
Whose doors, like harlots feet, lead down to Hell; 
Whose deadl}^ plague around the world extends. 
Destroying brain and brawn and soul to swell 
Y''our sacrificial gains: where base wealth lends 
To vice its seductive smile and purple. 

Are monuments to bastard trade born of greed and crime, 
Ne'er seen by pagan, heathen, or the Wizard, Time, 



48 

173. 

■'Fa(^ Christiiins reared their banner on this shore, 

And Fre^Hloni hailed her children from afar, 

To come and here Christ's Kingdom to restore — 

I^arn the jojs of peace — forget the arts of war. 

Yet scarcely had there passed of .years two score 

Ere by craft called trade ye began to mar 

Those joys — equality destroyed — new tricks devised. 

To snatch from Labor's hand each hard earned prize. 

174. 

"Thus, with candor, friendship's truest part — 

Have I of your patriotism spoken — 

Such as it is, it burns within your heart, 

And avarice is its only token — 

To your country you will stick like a wart, 

Tick, leech, cancer, till your hold be broken. 

The emperor needs your cash — hence I am civil — 

Now tell the truth about your wares and "shame the Devil." 

175. 

'' Mr. Secretary, knowing your bent 

Toward facetiousness and a fine jest — 

We take your true description as 't is meant — 

' It 's a dirty bird that fouls its own nest,' 

And as your section, on the government 

And tariff lives, its patriotic zest 

Equals that son's who, to save his father joined the strife, 

As his annuity ended with his father's life. 

170. 

"We live by gambling— you, the nation feeds, 
We skin only fools who enter our den; 
Your tariff every man and woman bleeds, 
Except the rich— they on the blood deper.d. 
We trench not on the poor man's daily needs — 
You tax him eating, working, sleeping,' and end 
Not at the grave as, each day, you whelp a Trust 
Tha-t tears his living flesh, then robs his sleeping dust. 

177. 

"You came an 'infant' to our foster mother, 
Begging for aid till you could get your growth, 
Saying, you wished strength to fight the foreigner 
And to her dominion add still greater worth. 
You now use your streng-th and wealth to smother 
Crush, destroy all "infants" at their birth. 
Bully, beat, rob our mother in distress. 
And hold by Trusts all labor in duress. 



49 

178. 

"Th<* tariff, of brutal Spanish oiigin, 

A sneak-tliief scion of a robber sire, 

Too cowardly for open foraging — 

Plying all artitices of the liar, 

Posing as a patriot — the poor man's friend; 

Says 't will raise him, then sinks, him in the mire, 

Outstrips Kidd's, Fagin's, Sliepard's modes of thieving — 

It takes his purse and makes him thinks it 's giving. 

17!). 

"You teach by it that two locked in a room 

Can swap coats all day and each come out winner: 

Protection 's not for him who grows the bloom. 

But patriotic to protect the sj)inner; 

That your support the public shall assume, 

While you fleece all from architect to tinner, 

From babes that can't be swaddled nor in cradles laid. 

To the dead that can't be shrouded, till your tax is paid. 

180 

"You lay a duty on a foreign hat 

Then add that duty to contribute aid 

To home production, and whenever that 

Sum — a dollar — is by a poor man paid 

You in hand, you tell him a falsehood flat — 

'low did not pay it— but your tariff made 

A rich foreigner pay it who had hats for sale' — 

And the fool, against his eyes; believes your fakir tale. 

181. 

"This is Freedom's land — the home of freemen. 
Free for jou who sell, buy and pay no toll. 
But toilers of the soil can not expend 
The proceeds of their toil — can not control 
Sale of their own — nor against your grasp defend 
Their rights. You, as tribute, have forced, all told. 
Many billions — your privileged class, like Egypt's ju'iests, 
Europe's crowned drones, — Sulu's king, — or Hindu's sacred 
beasts. 

182. 

"Beasts of burden — patient camels they are — 

At least, you have trained them by deceit, 

Vociferous hammering of the air, 

And cries of 'patriotism,' that hoary cheat 

That knaves employ the simple to ensnare. 

To bow their necks a footstool for your feet — 

Degenerate sons of men who, when England 

Trod on them, at Rebellion's call redeemed this land. 



50 

183. 

"B,v you fed and luiturfd this prolifio beast 
A litter hydra-lieaded lias bi-ouj^ht forth 
That, of a nation whole, have made their feast^ 
Spreadinj;- desolation over South and North, 
Hut far worse, theii- place of (U-igin — the E]ast — 
As, from foul dens in oaverns of the earth 
Where unclean beasts and hissing serpents are. 
Odors sickening, poisonous, fill the air — 

1S4. 

"(freed, (Jluttony — gross monstei's that are twin; 
Lust, Licentiousness^ — vvhel]>s of Idleness, 
That in vast wealth and luxury begin; — 
Inhumanity — than murder little less. 
Want — pitiless demon, bloodless, thin — 
Despair, the cub of Hunger and Distress — 
Following close, a countless, ghastly, spectral band. 
Each waving high Rp:A'()LrTTON'S tiamiug brand ! 

185. 

"Your master to those monsters is dry nurse. 
His master, Hanna, milks them now and then — 
And their polluting nmtter spreads to curse 
Those whose blood these monsters suck — conquered men! 
Had they the spirit of their sii'es — they'd force 
The gates of yon Jiastile — IMutocracy's den — 
Where stolen wealth against redress is fortilied— 
\Vhere every plea for justice is denied, 

180. 

"Where Chauncey stands, a railroad sentinel; 

Where Hoar the tariff guards against assault; 

Where Huntington forbids the (Julf canal; 

Where (Ireeue and Gaynor are kept from being caught; 

Where Hanna says 'you shall not,' or 'you shall,' 

And manikins obey as if they're bought — 

Where courtesy is the only law obeyed 

Except when Poker's rules are fairly played. 

187. 

"Where Quay, confessed purloiner, lost his seat 

By vote of only one, though precedents 

And laws strong as Draco's, 'gainst him were complete; 

Where charge of bribery is no offense 

Until the Press proclaims it on the street. 

Then vice turns virtuous for self-defense; 

Where Freedom early found a bloody grave 

From hands the people <-hose their lights to save." 



51 



188. 

"We're both robbers — so without further joke 
We will pi'oceed. We have supplies for sale"' — 
Thus one who had just seen Moss Hanna sjtoke. 
" We huA'e eanned beef that's just a little stale, 
Hut a deadshot if the soldier shouldn't choke. 
Or sickened by the smell, j^aj;- and tuin pi.le. 
We've army shoes made of paste-board — not leather — 
Warranted for one week, if worn in dry weather. 

189. 

"We've coke and coaJ, but, as Boss Hanna 
Has ai dead call on these from his own mines. 
We pass. We have what is styled the 'Hanner 
Hunting' for 'Old (Jlory,' because the winds 
Hlow through it, such is the open nmnner 
Of its woof, without touching. We've all kinds 
Of cheap drugs from diluted rain water up 
To bread-pills sugar-coated with sour syrup — 

190. 

"We have shoddy warranted not to teai% 

Rip, or burst, if the soldiers stand erect. 

In summer, one, but in winter, four pair 

At a time he '11 need. Then, ofticers can detect 

Sleeping sentinels — if they sit down, the rear 

Of their trousers burst and witness their neglect, 

'^Phis profits all, those who weave and those who sew 'em. 

As clothes wear out faster than they can renew 'em. 

191. 

"We've horse-hair blankets warranted all wool. 

Wove coolly open for the torrid zone. 

They'll stand anything but use, a stretch, or pull. 

We 've bacon very strong and chiefly bone — 

But why name more — our stock is fine and full — 

We'll divy — you allowing three for one." 

Says Long, "you are frank in offering a retainer. 

You should lessons take from Carter, Greene and Gaynor. 

192. 

These are of the masters who hold the whip 
O'er your bended backs as you toil a-tield; 
Who, you, from foundries, mines, factories, "ship" 
When to base usage you refuse to yield. 
Wlio, were your ruby blood but gold, would dip 
To the last drop and no compunction feel; 
Whose avarice grows by what it feeds upon — 
A morbid, cruel, sateless, deathless passion. 



52 

F'or this disease there's neither hope nor cure 

It bears the mark of even Heaven's despair 

Tliere's naught so deadly to the good and pure, 

As the sateless, gluttonous millionaire! 

He is pollution's fount, Hell's gilded lure. 

Contagion's vestment reeking on the air, 

Tlie World's' black plague, the withering simoon's breath. 

At once the wreck and minister of Death. 

194. 

The leper spurned with horror, sits alone; 

The harlot's mincing feet "take hold on hell" — 

After her dance of death — despair, a groan, 

A splash, a moment, the wavelets o'er her swell. 

And all her sensual ravages are done — 

This fair ruin of trusting love — whoi can, tell '? 

Or victim of that glutton's countless gold — 

Her starving form besieged, she ransomed with her soul. 

1J>5. 

Murder's red hand may riot for a time, 

But Vengeance's sleuth hound tracks it to its doom. 

The Ocean swallows fleets in every clime, 

And continents are wrapped in deepest gloom. 

Hut, the healing balm of years and Faith sublime 

Bring ease and we forget the sable plume. 

( 'Ontlagration's forked tongue laps cities from the earth 

That rise far more resplendent at their second birth. 

196. 

Earth reels and yawns, islands and cities sink. 
But, cities grow and islands rise elsewhere; 
Armies rush on death because idiots think 
Their royal dignity infringed. The air 
(J rows faint with slaughter, and the earth drinks 
The red wine of life, but in one brief year, 
Yields up the draught in food, or sparkling wine 
Pressed from the luscious purple of the vine. 

107. 

Famine, the pale ambassador of Death, 
Lays silent siege around the starving hearth. 
He saps and mines and, at each waning breath, 
Resistance weakens; and, soon, the earth 
Is iron, the Heavens, brass; and by stealth 
Pallor spreads her bloodless banner forth. 
The signal of surrender from despair — 
I>eath reigns for neither hope nor life is there. 



53 



198. 

Pale Famine's ghastly twin — Black Pestilence — 
Rides on the gale, or loiters with the breeze; 
Against its viewless march there's no defense — 
\'alor in terror tiies, or on its knees 
N'ainly pleads for quarter where'er its dense 
But noiseless column comes. By night it breathes 
On sleeping armies eager to clash at dawn — 
The morning comes, but the serried hosts sleep on. 

199. 

Into the banquet hall it conies at night 
Where wit and eloquence hold high carnival; 
And the tongue gifted for rapturous delight, 
By morn is dumb beneath the sable pall. 
It comes where twinkling feet, in fairy flight, 
Float rythmic with the dreamy rise and fall 
Of music's harmony; but ere another day, 
Those flying feet will coldly lie as other clay. 

200. 

To the bridal chamber it creeps and there, 

As if from envy of the bridegroom's bliss, 

It mingles poison with th' embracing air. 

On lips still glowing with the "Good-night" kiss 

And cheeks of sea-shell tint; bosom so fair 

The amorous breezes linger to caress, 

It sets its icy seal, breathes its withering breath, 

And the bride at eve, sleeps at morn the bride of Death. 

201. 

These are but Nature's ministers that obey 

Her laws and execute her stern decrees. 

What, though in fury blind they ruthless slay. 

Or sow the the lurid sky with uprooted trees; 

Or, with Parian Temple, the bride of Art, play 

As if its purity caressing, then, seize 

It in Titanic rage, and crumble it to dust — 

Gan we say, these ministers have betrayed our trust? 

202. 

Famine is but negation — Mother Earth 

Wonld smile and nurse, but that her breast is dry. 

Because, above, there is another dearth 

Where Juno, goddess of the aqueous sky. 

Jealous of Ceres, checks her prolific birth. 

But the parching tongue, the agonizing cry. 

The famished dead, the li^^ng shrunk to skin and bone — 

These are not man's deed— they are Nature's work alona 



54 

208. 

Is this wild faiKV, or hyperbole? 

A madiiiau's dream, "a ligiiieut of the brain? " 

Or the hoarse iiiiiible of dread anarchy 

That louder, nearer, shall be heard again? 

No! thou art insane, and the vagary 

All thy own; and, thougli, it wholly be in vain 

To reason with blind Pharoah's ai'i'Oganee and lust, 

Others may learn the way to raise them from the dust. 

204. 

lint thou! insatiate multi-millionaire! 

(Jreedier than the leech, "cruel as the grave!" 

Whose gluttonous appetite does not spare 

Lisping babes, nor tottering age, nor slave, 

Nor orphan's cries, nor virtue in despair. 

Nor friendship's ties, honor, nor the brave 

Who thy stolen gains and our country's flag defend. 

Thou art the consummation of each and every fiend ! 

205. 

Thy engulfing, insatiable maw 

Is as illimitable as all space^ — 

Beastly, swinish, brutal ; the tiger's paw 

And tusks; the Satyr' hoofs and sensual face; 

The hawk's and eagle's bloody beak and claw ; 

kSiberian wolves whose tracks by bones we trace; 

The loathsome sow devouring her own brood; 

The Sphynx' wide mouth dripping with human blood; 

200. 

Harpies that claw, devour the poor man's bread, 
The vultures scenting carrion from afar; 
The lank hyena prowling for the dead; 
The man-shark waging its rapacious war. 
Save that no blood-stream marks thy coward tread; 
Drouth, plague, famine, pestilence, that outwear 
Man's courage, hope, life — these are but trifling woes 
Compared to thee, the last and worst of human foes ! 

207. 

Thou teachest rapine, as an idiot knows. 

Thy hundred millions are from the robber-plan. 

Thou teachest theft — no such fortune grows, 

Or is amassed by toiling honest hand; 

Ten thousand years could not pile up thy stores 

Earned in obedience to God's command — 

"In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread ! " 

Thou cancer on the living, and maggot to the dead ! 



55 
208. 

There are few crimes however high or low 

Thou art not father to. Thou breedest them 

As the carrion fly does its maggots blow. 

Crimes are AVant's branches, thou art the stem 

And root of Want from which they wildly grow. 

Which others may, but tliou canst not, condemn. 

Thy guilty, cunning hand sheds countless tons of blood, 

And, soon or late, o'er thee will rush this crimson Hood. 

209. 

Want drives the dagger in the assasin's hand; 

Want drives the father penniless to steal, 

Whose honor but for want would unshaken stand. 

When the piteous cry of famished infants peal 

On the mother's breaking heart in this land 

Of plenty, and greedy riches for her feel 

Xo pity, give no hel]), and, to save her child, she sins — 

Where lies the fault, with her, or where the cause begins? 

210. 

The maid at birth that all the Fairies bless. 
Whose morning cradled in the lap of love, 
Is one unceasing, rapturous caress; 
Gentle and wooing as the fledgling dove — 
A poem and a paragon in loveliness — 
At noon, bereft of fortune and, above 
All, the guardian circle of the sacred home. 
Drifts on the world in helplessness to roam. 

211. 

The tide sets out and clouds soon veil the sun. 
She sees no helping hand — the night grows black — 
She recks not how the midnight tide may run. 
Want puts her fainting heart u})on the rack; 
The seducer's wily work is soon begun 
While hunger's bloodhound presses on her trark 
Till, sinking in despair, to clioose or death, or shame. 
She yields — say I thou greedy glutton! where lies the 
blame? 

212. 

Is this true of each multi-millionaire ? 

(Tod be praised I there are some in this vSodom 

Righteous found; but not quite enough to spare 

It from the swift, inevitable doom 

Of the Cities of the Plain, they will share 

With the gi-eedy. Ere long there will not be room 

For Lazarus and Dives^ — a million to one — 

Even the maggots in their sores will quench Dives' sun. 



56 

213. 

Gerard, whose benefaction to the poor 
The "unco good," as he was an infidel. 
Sought to destroy through judicial favor. 
Peabod}'^ and Lawrence wrought supremely' well. 
Seeing their benevolence bear fruit before 
From their palsied hands their vast riches fell, 
Hirsch, of the loins of Judah — the world oppressed — 
Canonized himself by aiding the distressed. 

214. 

Modest, silent Flower, with secret hand 

Welcomed an opportunity to give. 

The Psalmist's words he took as a command, 

" Better it is to give than to receive." 

Hearst, whose riches were sifted from the sand — 

Making thousands to rejoice — none to grieve — 

Wields his great fortune to educate mankind, 

As prophets used their gifts to heal the blind. 

215. 

By the bright waters of the Western Rhine 

Dwells a spirit as placid as its flood. 

As through some rare vase of alabaster shine 

Rays softened, like beauty by a vestal hood. 

So, among mortal clay, she seems di-vine. 

As, where'er she "goes she 's doing good." 

A temple fit for Faith, Hope and Charity to dwell in. 

Beautiful in soul as the face of Grecian Helen. 

216. 

She holds her millions as a sacred trust, 
Burying not five talents— no, not one — ' 
Lifting the weak and fallen from the dust; 
Plans new charities before the last is done; 
And when Calamity's wail is heard, the first 
To help, the last to leave, as, when the Son 
Of Righteonsness in agony loudly cried, 
Mary, devotion's paragon, lingered at His Side. 

217. 

Lo! the contrast in Rockefeller's breast. 

Like the Dead Sea that swallows Jordan's tide 

Forever in stagnation's deep to rest! 

No life within — ruin on every side 

Where spectres seeming mummified attest 
'Hie foul, contagious breath in which they died— 
Looking as if Death had searched his charnel stores. 
And set his choice museum on its ghastly shores. 



57 

218. 

Yet, this sunken, hideous sea-of-death, 
At rare intervals, in convulsion quakes. 
When Angry Vulcan with his earthquake breath 
The plains and mountains of Jndea shakes — 
Then, this sea throws up asphaltum from beneath; 
So, whenever a vigorous colic makes 
Rockefeller afraid to die, he pleadingly hollers, 
And vomits to Chicago a million dollars. 

219. 

There is a uniform trajectory 

To this multi-millionaire's cram])ed stomach, 

It 's under a latitude directory 

And never retches over the Potomac. 

But hit« Chicago University 

Each heave. The reason is, there is no lack 

Of flatten-, flunkeyism, and tin-horn toots 

By its scribblers as they humbly lick his boots. 

220. 

After a recent retch, one "rushed into pi'int" 
To prove Trusts a blessing, and himself — an ass. 
" To one man's riches there should be no stint ; 
Why not let him all the world's wealth amass. 
Be the whole government, conduct each mint. 
Be bj' himself the plutocratic class, 
Rule by Divine Right, monopolize each honor. 
On freedom, manhood, justice, 'get a corner?' " 

221. 

Still, to his gifts there's one redeeming trait. 
They go solely to the ruling, ruddy race — 
Not to kindle the flame of negro hate 
By graving on his savagery a trace 
Of learning, just enough, "as sure as Fate," 
To lead to crime, tlie gallows, or disgrace. 
So, on his tomb this negative single virtue write, 
" While trying to wreck the world, of the negro he lost 
sight." 



58 

CANTO THIRD. 

1. 

My reasons for joining your cabinet 

Might, properly, have been sooner stated; 

Although it should not cause you deep regret 

That they are an hour or two belated. 

(fOod novelists curiosity whet 

By telling last how virtue has been fated. 

Or, how the villain received just punislunent, 

Or, how the bear ate Red Riding Hood — so innocent. 



My reasons for this sacrifice are many; 
All are strong and each alone is ample. 
They are so numerous that in giving any 
I must, as drummers do, show but a sample — 
Letting you judge if they are worth a penny; 
But others, who will read your bad example, 
AN'heu Party-heat has cooled in coming years, 
Will write you down, " Weakest of all his peers I " 

3. 

And, first, because your memory is weak. 

Or you are ignorant of geography; 

Not that part called Ohio and a creek 

Or two near Canton's dear topography; 

Nor of Luzon, nor Negros, where your meek 

Subjects are teaching you ethnography 

AA'rit in dearest blood of our brave troops and seamen 

And read through tears and sobs of widowed women. 



AVhen you wore the Major's straps you well knew 

There was a territorial section 

Called the South, inhabited by a few 

( )f Saxon blood, whose study was protection 

Of the Constitution against your new 

Evangel of " Higher Law " — whose direction 

They knew was toward the hell all are now in 

Of murder, riots, rape, lynching, and every other sin. 

5. 

When you were stung by the presidential bee 

There you sent your henchman, now your master, 

(3n that Southern, still-hunt, slave-trade journey 

To learn the prices quoted in the pasture 

Of the Republican " Higher Law See," 

Where to reach office surer and faster, 

Was corralled your black, broken, easy-riding stock 

Branded " R." — the same those Saxons sold on the block, 



59 
G. 

As did their Yankee masters when they sold. 
He found a million in the front stable 
Bridled and saddled, and, when they were told 
They should eat fodder at the white man's table — 
Get a ride free, — fifty dollars cash in gold — 
If they would '* MeKinley" neigh as long as able, 
They took his bridle, Hanna got on a-straddle. 
And, like fat Saueho, jumped you to the saddle. 



I fear, Dear Scribe, you have been ungrateful; 

No one can say you have been so to Hanna, 

But, the negro thinks your conduct hateful. 

They've followed your commissary banner 

In hungr}' files enough to make a State full. 

If tbey could be gathered in that manner 

They would fill Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine — 

What a special Providence! if — but I need not explain. 



Ingratitude, basest of all our sins. 
Could the fond father know at life's sweet dawn. 
When the fii'st throb of love's rich tide begins. 
That, the idol worshipped in its helpless morn — 
Whose very helplessness affection wins — 
His love, devotion, counsel, care, w^ould scorn 
At noon — it w'ould wreck the argosy of life 
And turn mankind, like beasts, to deadly strife. 

0. 

I pray you not to think that I forget 

I am your counsel in affairs of Peace, 

Or that I, a negi'o or two, would let 

Decoy me off, or my advice to cease. 

Like some lawyers who their own cause set 

In stronger li.'.dit by arguing with ease 

The other side — so, I speak up for the negro 

To set in baise relief your charming figure. 

10. 

For the "argument" I've no apologj'. 

Except that it is, of speech, a figure: 

The case is one of genealogy — 

Hanna, at Tliomasville. begat the negro, 

At St. Louis, (following chronology), 

The negro begat Hanna's alter ego. 

Yourself — of the Republican mother. 

Which babe its grandpa at once began to smother. 



60 

11. 

The question, now, is puzzling, rather— 

To which should you show most gratitude — 

To grandpa, mother, or your father ? 

Your grandpa has had more latitude 

Than mother and father both togetlier. 

The negro's share of the pap beatitude 

Leaves him puzzled and grieving o'er the text— 

" The Devil begat Beelzebub— and I'm perplexed." 

12. 

There is no end to this family bother. 

Your party claims, it did the Freedmau breed; 

And as it,*by the negro, is your mother. 

That, (both being of Republican seed), 

Makes your black father also your brother. 

As Hauna is father to your brother, 't is agreed, 

Your grandpa is, also, your sire; w^hich pedigree 

Makes rather a dirty heraldy for the three. 

13. 

As the grandpa is the baby's sponsor, 
It's clear that you of him can not get rid. 
The two together form the real Centaur — 
You — the body, hoofs and tail: he, the head, 
Ej-es, mouth, ears, and your official Mentor, 
Holding the lines by which you're driven or led. 
The people gazing wonder how the thing was done — 
Did the man swallow the horse, or are the two but one 

14. 

They marvel over this strange connection, 
Even its grooms — the Cabinet — can not tell. 
Nor college of surgeons by dissection — 
Where the senses of this huge monster dwell. 
The learned Cabinet, from much inspection, 
Believe lliey are located in its tail — 
But. though the horse knows more than its i-ider, 
Still, being weak, the man as usual is the guider. 

15. 

>'o ii'jttter how came tl'.e nmn^^rimation, 
W?M>iher by mortgage or by affinity. 
Or, by what is \vorse — contamination — 
We know, there's in it no divinity. 
But, to make sure of our damnation. 
The negro went in to make the trinity — 
Although the nea:ro is led, as any stimpter mule. 
For Ilanna's riding when he needs another fool. 



61 
16. 

Tlie nations wonder at the malformation; 
Scientists are wrapped in deep reflection ; 
Some say, it is all hallucination; 
Some, a case of " Natural Selection," 
Others, it is fatal inflammation 
Prom the coecum's fault to j;ive protection. 
And appendix vermiformis (to speak polite), is, 
Abnormally distended by appendicitis. 

17. 

Some say, it's complication abdominal — 
The man bein^ a monopolist perse, 
The horse stufl'ed with offices national, 
The man desiring a monopoly 
Of them, decided, the plan most rational 
Wns to gulp the horse and cinch the property, 
Which recalls the tale (I forget the relator) 
Of " rialf man, half horse and half alligator." 

18. 

The last view is by the politicians 
Who, after causes of events are known 
By all, are able diagnosticians. 
Still, plausibly their theory is shown — 
As tie two-one are Ohio magicians. 
Where all offices are fat, that fact alone 
Explains the puzzle why the people view 
Hanna's mug whenever they look at you. 

19. 

My second reason is owing to my sight, 
Though it is neither short nor dim. My manner 
Of seeing things is national, for, day and night, 
All look for you and nothing see but Hanna. 
To us 't is strange, but clear to a Ninevite, 
Who'd swear, it is ,^ baby with a banner 
Playing hobby-horse in a bull whale's belly. 
Which will soon mash baby into a jelly. 

20. 

"Ye gods and little fishes!" what a plight 

For a president (n(miinal) to be in! 

Cabined, cribbed, confined — no chance for flight — 

It would take a month to cut through his skin. 

Besides, if you could, you dare not to fight 

This whale, as greater trouble would begin. 

And, 'tis vain to hope the whale will throw you up — 

He lets go nothing from president to pup. 



62 

21. 

Excuse my bawliag — I must speak quite loud, 
As your hearing, we know, comes through the whale. 
If your many nurses and still greater crowd 
Of friends for office, both male and female, 
Would save you from your infamous and cowed 
Position, they must get you out on bail 
Through some sea-attorney like Secretary Long, 
Or with dynamite harpoon both keen and strong. 



Though I'm only counsel in affairs of Peace, 
Still I advise the sea-attorney plan — 
It is much easier — Long 's as smooth as grease — 
The harpoon might kill whale and little man; 
And, though your empire by the twin decease — 
(Both playing the old game — Catrli-a«-Catch-Can) — 
Would fall, you'd have the glorious consolation 
Of baptist burial with Hanna and — salvation. 

23. 

But the nation would grieve itself lop-sided; 

The Trusts would a corner make in mourning; 

And Railroads think creation had collided; 

And the poor would cease awhile their groaning 

That a shaft of brass should be provided 

With inscription piteously moaning, 

"Farewell! Corporation twins! While in breath 

You were a whale — divided you shall not be in death." 

24. 

The infant industries would come crying, 

Haggard and wan from living on the air; 

Some in rags — and some in tags — all flying — 

And the dogs would bark — for beggars sure they are. 

They'd gTieve for Mark's lost art of "frying 

Out fat" to buy the presidential chair. 

While your dear mummy they would lovingly embalm 

In Hanna's mug on Mary followed by her lamb. 

25. 

Your pet tariff they would not omit, of course, 
To memorialize you and leave it out 
Would be discourtesy and neglect too gross — 
Like swine seizing all in reach of snout 
Without looking or caring for the source. 
But, what they 'd say or do I am in doubt, 
And, so, giving my theme a short vacation, 
I '11 try my feeble lyre in speculation. 



63 



20. 

They should build to you a palace 
Of richest precious stones; 
Its roof should be of ivory, 
Its base of human bones; 
Diamonds should be its windows 
Set round with rarest pearls, 
While over its dismal portal, 
.Should hang Medusa's curls. 
All round, it should be moated. 
The work be strong and good, 
The moat be always swimming 
With the best of human blood; 
The walls be filled with paintings 
To show^ your tariff's deeds 
That heap the rich man's riches 
And cause the poor man's needs. 
Let the artist be a Michael 
His paint of blood and tears — 
You have caused of both enough 
To last a thousand years. 
He should paint ten million orphans, 
A vampire at each throat, 
Ten million men and women 
A^'hose purse holds not a groat. 
Paint starved, mothers tearing dresses 
To make their babies' shrouds, 
Then paint an angel stooping, 
To bless them, from the clouds. 
Paint that brave devoted father 
Madly driven to despair. 
As he swings the deadly hatchet 
Through the fetid, frightened air, 
Murdering both wife and children 
Lest they starve before his eyes, 
Loud cursing God and Devil, 
Then by his own hand dies. 
Thv^u bid him paint the master 
With Monte Cristo's wealth, 
Driving the poor like cattle 
Breaking spirit, strength and health. 
And when for living wages 
They are forced to beg or pray. 
Paint him raving like a demon 
As he curses them away. 
Then let him paint you seated 
In your House Committee room, 
With these taiiff wolves around you 
To fix the people's doom ; 
Your lamb-like .spirit yielding — 
The White House in full view — 
Each robber names his figures, 
And gets them as his due. 



64 

I'aint a thousand obese magnates 

And, crawling round their feet 

Like worms, their million victims 

Begging a crumb to eat. 

Paine off Kartoldi's statue 

Then paiui a gallows tree 

And hanged there Aguinaldo 

In the name of Liberty. 

Tear down that mocking figure 

That mounts our nation's dome 

l*ut there a bloody tyrant 

A Nero soon to come; 

And that he may be certain 

We 're ready for his lust 

That his feet will be soft cushioned 

On our craven, cringing dust, 

On tlie fioor inlaid with jewels 

Of this bachannalian hall, 

Paint the women, prone but covered, 

At the Bradley-Martin Ball, 

Where in Babylonian scarlet 

And symbols else they wore, 

They selected as their model 

Russia's royal, greatest w e; 

Others with wanton's coarseness, 
Passing all that's gone before, 
Spread their charms as royal mistress 
In Valliere, or Pompadour. 
Let its statues all be marble 
Parian, spotless, of the best; 
One a mother dead from starving — 
Infant tugging at her breast. 
One a father, husband, brother — 
Gladiators once in form — 
Starving there though glad to labor 
With a Herculean arm — 
Shrunken, haggard, young, but stooping, 
Aged by sorrow, vj'dnt and care, 
Cheeks all hollow, hair dishevelled. 
Eyes that mirror mute despair. 
From each tree around your palace 
Paint a skeleton hanging there — 
Swinging, rattling, gibing, grinning — 
Paint it as the fruit they bear. 



The gamblers too would close their gilded dens 
And hie them to this ichthyoid diaster; 
For, being one in water on which depends 
Largely their profits, they 'd travel faster 
To get a corner and declare dividends 
Payable in the water where sank their master. 
Failing in that, tliey 'd sell the rorqual shroud 
And imperial contents to the patriot crowd. 



65 



28. 

A jolly band of Turpins are these fellows, 
Lunching on champagne, canvas-back and chops; 
Selling all farmers grow, with Stentor bellows 
Loud enough to wake old mummy Cheops, 
Before 't is sown — so prognostic are their smellers. 
They act as if they raise and own the crops; 
They shout, scream, shriek, rave, in marble halls, 
Drowning the cry of ten thousand caterwauls. 

29. 

WUen "you are sold to the highest bidder," 

They would then bet on which would rise up first, 

You, or the whale. They would not consider 

That for your majesty to win, the whale must burst. 

They have nimble fingers, can "skin" a nigger 

At his favorite game — of all the worst. 

They '11 gamble on whether enfant in sa mere ventre 

Will make Pa keep books by single or double entry. 

30. 

But, your Secretaries, who'd be there, of course, 
Knowing the mammal and its contents — well. 
And being learned in hydrogenous force 
And how it makes all putrid bodies swell, 
Would expound, that the rorcjual being gross — 
The othei", gaseous and light, will soon compel 
The whale to rise — just as Hobson — be he praised! 
Maria Teresa, the Spanish waaship, raised. 

31. 

1 am not your consul in hygiene, 
Or the perils incident to water; 
But, the sad event supposed — by which 1 mean 
Your majesty's awful death, by slaughter — 
So like Pollonius, stabbed through a screen — 
Kecalling Campbell's wild wail "My daughter!" 
Oh! my daughter! would give a deadly blow 
To church, religion, and all that from them flow — 

32. 

The veiy thought of that unjust event 
Produces in the orthodox stagnation. 
Only God can know its direful extent — 
Not of your death, but of Marc's salvation. 
Even Satan would inquire what it meant 
And, of right, demand investigation. 
To strain the humble Chi-istian's faith that far 
Would cause another Monoousian war. 



66 

33. 

Tiiiuk of Hauiia and salvation toj4ethei' ! 

It makes the imagination vomit ! 

If that fan be, I raise the question whether, 

In view of the Devil's tlieologic permit 

To scourge the Earth, hold rule in the Nether 

World, and roam through space like Biela's comet, 

He has any rights whatever? If Marc can go free, 

The Devil's jurisdiction is coram nonjadice. 

34. 

But what lie might start here is a bagatelle 

To the devilment he would do up there. 

He 'd, first, ask some heirarch him to tell 

Who holds the costliest and highest chair. 

Being told he is the Archangel Gabriel, 

Having never heaM of Gabriel, he 'd stare 

A moment, then swagger up — clear his throat — 

And ask if he 's old Gabriel of whom George Eliot wrote. 

35. 

He 'd ask Gabriel to step behind the door 

As he had a proposition on bed-rock 

To make him. It would be that they, before 

The next colony could arrive, should block 

The market, and get options on every store 

Having golden harps and wings — boost the stock — 

Like Leiter and "old Huck," on credit. "Should the worst 

Come to the worst, why, we^ '11 unload and — let her burst.' 

3G. 

But Gabriel naturally asks his name, 

"Hanna," "But you 're apparelled in man's clothes. 

You may be Satan in disguise" — "I 'm the same 

Marc who owns a President. Every one knows 

This — even his Secretaries who 've no fame 

At home for knowing much. I could disclose, 

If no reporters were here to tell the nation, 

Some of the workings of my administration. 

37. 

"However, this is not the place to talk 
I feel uncomfortable and wonder 
How I got here. It must be, that like cork 
Light bodies rise, or through the blunder 
Of Charon putting me in the wrong walk 
When I disembarked; but, I heard thunder 
And looking up saw this fine house and shade 
And hurried on to strike the owner for a trade. 



67 

38. 

"That reminds me — do you accept my offer? 
I '11 put up as collateral several mines 
With all my 'scabs,' and I proffer, 
Also, twelve hundred islands called Philippines, 
And all that lately came into my coffer. 
Lying all within the expanded confines 
Of the American empire which I rule 
Through my deputy — called by some my tool. 

39. 

"You do n't seem inclined to speculate 

Then, let us start a Napoleonic war — 

Not that I wish to fight — ^but to create 

Demand for every thing including tar 

And, specially, iron, coal, embalmed meat — 

The last can kill more soldiers than tlie Czar 

Slaughtered of Nap's, when helped by Cossacks and the 

clouds — 
Then, we 'd get a corner on coffins and on shrouds — " 

40. 

Even predestinarians will admit 

That Hanna was not built to play on harps. 

Light fingered practices make him unfit — 

He 'd bellow "Te laudamus" — all in sharps. 

As this part is zoologic, I '11 not omit 

To state the objection fatal to Marc's 

Joining the harpists' choir — though he might sing— . 

His bay-window's so deep, he could not reach a string. 

4L 

The assembled listening hosts of Heaven 
Shrunk in horror from his polluted form, 
Believing him to be the Beast with seven 
Heads and ten horns and ten crowns on each horn — 
Leopard's looks — feet like a bear's, not cloven, 
With a lion's mouth — which beast, says St. Jolin, 
The dragon chose among all devouring beasts 
To make mankind fitted for a demon's feasts. 

42. 

Gabriel, meanwhile, as he heard had gazed 

In silence on the monster, whose ruling 

Passion Death conld not quench. He stood amazed, 

Scarce hearing what was said. Whence such schooling 

Of mortals could have been, but in Hell, raised 

Such donbt, he thought perhaps the beast was "fooling," 

As men laugh at funerals, or jest with Death, 

Knowing the next may be their parting breath. 



68 

13. 

But, seeing the eyes bright with lustful glow, 
The hands extended, clenched, as if to grasp 
Stolen treasures; the tongue swinging slow 
From lips parched by avarice — as the asp 
Waves its venomous head; his posture low, 
As beasts when they prepare their prey to clasp, 
Or like Satan crouching in the loathsome toad 
Tempting Eve to sin and forfeit her abode, 

44. 

Gabriel, with his official staff, rapped 
To summon cherubim to eject the wretch. 
But, Hanna, thinking the gavel had tapped 
For sale of bonds aud stocks, began to stretch 
His neck to hear the "opening" — As he lapped 
From the air the profits his trade would fetch, 
He roared in the Stock-exchange beasth' manner — 
''I bid fifty for two thousand Lackawanna." 

45. 

As quick as lighining leaps from cloud to Earth 

The ponderous shade shot o'er the sapphire wall, 

With natural gravitation from his birth 

To all vile means and ends, he, like a ball. 

Sped downward, grai^pling his own golden girth. 

Shrieking wildly, "Oh, for a Put and Oall!" 

Caring not whether he stuck in Hell, or struck a rock — 

He raved because he lost the profits on that stock. 

46. 

But his grief was suddenly, as was he, 

Arrested by a pitchfork at white heat. 

"Hello! Tillman! Is that yon? I had to fiee 

Just now and leaN e my profits on a bet. 

]t nearly broke my lieai't when Gabriel told me 

I must vacate my place and leave "the Street." 

I never saw such a chilling, crusty old curmudgeon — 

At every offer of a bet or trade he took high dudgeon."' 

47. 

"I am not Ben Tillman — I am your father. 

You must be greatly rattled, my dear son, 

To take my empire for the Senate which is rather 

The vestibule and a select small section 

Of my vast dominions, that I gather 

From the ignorant masses for tuition. 

They 've made brilliant progress, when in session. 

Since you arrived and tanght them yonr "Progression." 



69 



4S. 

Pitt of his greater sou was justly proud; 
Hannibal added to Hamilcar's fame; 
Alexander left Philip under a cloud 
But, never before did a great man name 
A son so illustrious, to so vast a crowd 
As heard Satan, Hanna, his heir, proclaim. 
But w^hat Satan said to that foreign nation. 
Would be here words of superogation. 

49. 

It is not a matter for astonishment 

That father and son had never met before. 

The reason is plain : for sure accomplishment 

Of their alloted work — one to starve the poor. 

The other, the rich devour, the arondissement 

Of each must be apart but, still, shore to shore. 

The father, a spirit, works in fire and sparks, 

The son, where he wears pants checked with dollai- marks. 

50. 

His son the Devil knew, of course, at sight. 

Having dwelt in him more than fifty years. 

The son looked sore distressed and puzzled quite. 

Like one to whose view some new face appears 

A vision in ti'oubled dreams by night. 

Or image of the dead seen last through tears. 

But Hanna soon remembered he had seen that face, 

It was when e'er he stood before a looking glass. 

51. 

Being loving relatives parted long. 

When courtesies due to their high stations 

Were first observed, to fool the gaping throng, 

Just as Czars hug, and all heads of nations. 

Save women who think huggiug very wrong, 

Tlie subject of their administrations 

Was as naturally their mental bent 

As are, with women, Easter bonnets during Lent. 

52. 

Satan seeing his son somewhat distraught, 

And thinking it because things looked so sti'ange. 

Or from the pitchfork he had taken lockjaw. 

Or he fever had from great climatic change. 

Offered a drink of molten lead or aqua 

Fortis, the surest drinks in all the range 

Of cures, from Aesculapius of old. 

To quench all thirst except the thirst for gold. 



70 

5:j. 

"I prefer Bourbon or Kentucky rye, 
Thoug'h they vulgar- are among potations. 
My fa.vorite drink is Cliquot's Extra. Dry 
Mucli used by highly civilized nations 
Like France, Cuba, Africa and Hayti, 
With which my country holds close relations. 
When we would overreach them on this or that, 
^^'e employ champagne as our diplomat." 

54. 

"You forget, my son, where you are. You 're in Hell — 

Not for roasting now, but consultation, 

Your drinks suit not this climate; they do well 

As feeders to Hell's vast population. 

In fact, nearly two-thirds of all who dwell 

On the Earth, as shown by calculation. 

Fall or stagger into Hell from bar-room doors. 

Clubs, saloons, Dives — everywhere your liquor pours. 

55. 

"You weai* a look of doubt; I read your mind. 
The millionaires are the fruitful source. 
The rushing waves sink the ship, but the wind 
Madly drives them with resistless force. 
For the real cause of anarchy look behind 
The lawless hand to find Destruction's source. 
Famine and hunger drive the best to plunder. 
And millionaires breed famine, crime and hunger. 

5<). 

"But millionaires suit me to the letter, 
When you return, foster every Trust — 
For breeding anarchy there 's nothing better. 
All precautions use that not one shall burst; 
Bind federal Judges with golden fetter. 
Y^ou of all my Vicegerents are the First — 

At bribery you stand confessed withont a peer 

Worst of crimes so-called—as T will soon make clear." 

57. 

"Pa, you do me proud. \Mien I reflect 

You have been damning sonls six thousand vears 

And I, scarce fifty, I indeed suspect 

I 'm a success at wringing groans and tears. 

Anguish, from millions until, most abject 

Through want, they become slaves so basp that ieers 

rnsults, curses, resentment can not make 

Their iron sliackles and galling chains, in break " 



71 

58. 

^*The father should be proud of such a son, 
And, later, my devotion I shall show — 
I shall proclaim the honors you have won 
Throughout the farthest pits of deepest woe 
Millions of miles beyond the mingled shriek, groan, 
Yell, wail, curse, lament, you now hear below — 
liut, you must return to business, my dear boy, 
Remember, you, on Earth, are Hell's supreme decoy. 

59. 

"Now — in terse language and with ease, recite 

The story of your stewardship on Earth. 

Though I know all, still, 't is a great delight 

To hear it often told: as, since man's birth, 

Love's tender cadence flowing day and night, 

Is still life's sweetest joy, whatever worth 

All other joys many have. But- 1 forget — your soul 

Enjoys alone market reports in stocks and coal." 

60. 

"With meek submission, Pa! I '11 now begin. 

The human race, you know, is thus divided — 

Those who are out and the few who are in. 

The Outs have always been the Derided, 

And their sole study has been how to win. 

For many thousand years it was decided 

By might — not right, and hence mankind had kings, 

Despots, monarchs, tyrants and like brutal things. 

61. 

"This leaven worked for centuries and then 

The American colonies broke the yoke 

When that old crank, Jefferson, said 'all men 

Are born equal' — a most infernal joke! 

As all thoroughbred and true gentlemen 

Like you and me, Pa, well know. I could choke 

The old scoundrel for telling that whopping lie — 

Why — that would make the poor equal to you and I !" 

62. 

"Just one remark, and then you may proceed. 
You are not my son by procreation. 
But by instinct, inhumanity, greed, 
Gorupting practices, thought, education. 
Still, your lineage shows very good seed. 
On one ancestors tomb there is mention 
That he once ran for bailitf, but was defeated. 
Because, although he bribed, his opponent cheated." 



72 

63. 

"Thanks, Pa, for my illustrious pedigree. 

You I may need, some day, to testify 

On an indictment or two for bribery. 

As insanity is plead to justify 

Murder, I shall set up heredity 

To excuse my deed. And I see not why 

1 should not go free, since bribers are so common 

I could n't pick a jury without having some on. 

"In the New World the people held their grip. 

They kicked out kings, dukes, earls — the whole business- 

And with Law as Ruler set oat on their ti'ij). 

The job at first produced some dizziness, 

Cut old Jeff., as lead-horse, made no slip. 

Albeit Hamilton's and others' quizziness. 

Who with the rich fell back, on the breeching. 

And their da rudest tried to rip the stitching. 

65. 

"The rich, you know, Pa, have always sided 

With kings and all Rulers. The reason 's plain — 

They are in cohoot — can 't be divided. 

Kings grant monopolies and thus sustain 

The rich who being thus well provided. 

Become kings' creditors; and to maintain 

Strong government (or big armies) they unite by stealth. 

One to hold their thrones, the other to hold their wealth. 

66. 

"This is the struggle ou Earth, to-day, 

We, the rich, but few, almost own the Earth — 

A thousand own three-fourths of America. 

The poor are wild, and a large army 's v/orth 

Fifty billions to us to make them obey 

The laws which we employ to fill our purse — 

The tariff, Jersey Trusts, Monopolies and Banks, 

And Negro Rule — except in plutocratic ranks. 

67. 

"But, I 'm ahead long way of my story 
Where was I at?" "You were me delighting 
With how the royalists, always gory. 
So nearly Freedom wrecked by not fighting." 
"Yes, though the fools planted high 'Old Glory,' 
Tf Madison and such had not kept on writing, 
We 'd have beat Washington and the Constitution 
And kept up the old-time royal-rich pollution. 



73 

C8. 

"The poor being by far the biggest crowd 

Won the day and split the rich from royalty, 

Which left the former under a dismal cloud — 

No titles, garters, (rewards for loyalty), 

No monopolies, cast-off mistresses proud 

Of degredation when it comes regally. 

Those ambitions for base syncophants being gone 

They studied, next, how Croesus' riches could be won. 

09. 

"In that corner of your vast dominion 

Called New England settled by Puritans 

Who England left for sake of opinion. 

And were followed by Scotch and other dans. 

Their chief work was killing the Indian 

For a century, which prevented plans 

For getting riches; they fought and prayed. 

And prayed and fought as long a*< the Indians stayed. 

70. 

"Granite in winter and, in summer, ice 
Were their chief exports; but the slave trade soon 
Their sympathies engaged. Between the price — 
A few beads — a gallon of rum — ^a spoon — 
(When a nigger could not by shrewd device 
Be kidnapped), and the price got in one moon, 
There was temptation to cut short even a prayer. 
Pledging God to finish, if He "d make prolits fair. 

71. 

''But Capital in niggers did not pay 

In the temperature of Plymouth Kock, 

Besides, 'the sublime patience,' as they say, 

Of the nigger race when full chock-a-block 

With Boston beans and boiled pork, won the day. 

Then conscience suddenly received a shock — 

Slavery was a sin — the nigger must be freed — 

They set a day for freedom — then sold him in hot speed. 



"The section of your kingdom called the South 

Being sunny and eke hosy)itable. 

Eased the Yankee's conscience and nigger's month. 

By paying for each one purchasable, 

Before Freedom could catch him in the North. 

And that blood-money — how admirable ! 

Went into mills to spin the very cotton 

Made by the 'Institution of Hell begotten.' 



74 

73. 

"Blood-mone.y paid well — so profitable 

It pivp the praying Puritan thirst for gold. 

To make blood-money pay more, and stable, 

He did -x little tariff scheme unfold. 

'The government was formed to enable 

Him to make money' — the South was( told — 

Not in words — the logic being, though rather dim, 

'He supports the government and it must feed him 

74. 

"This scheme the South, lacking education, 

Considered selfish and would not approve. 

It could n't see, by any calculation, 

How two feeding each other could improve 

Their several financial situation. 

'T was like him who by his suspenders strove 

To lift himself. So the South resisted 

While the East for seventy years insisted. 



' Meanwhile the East a move by flank began, 
The South's wealth she envied, and proud station. 
As Mordecai, the Jew, was envied by Haman. 
They hated even the word 'plantation' — 
Charged Southerners with being inhuman. 
Began a crusade by agitation. 
Declaring /the Constitution a League with Death 
And a covenant with Hell,' which, at every breath, 

70. 

"Fanatics shrieked and screamed, and ministers 
Damned every slaveholder in Hell to burn. 
Sister's Stowe's book raised national blisters — 
For whose kindness the nigger, in return. 
Now gratefully rapes her Noithern sisters, 
While her Northera brothers show less concern 
For their sisters brutally raped and clinched, 
Thau that the nigger brute should not be lynched. 



"Railroads called 'underground' were daily run 
To transport stolen niggers to the North. 
Emmissaries to breed insurrection 
Swarmed around nigger cabins preaching wrath, 
And scattered pamphlets by the million. 
Now, the stolen niggers moving in the path 
Of their thieving captors, from them now steal 
To prove the depth of gratitude they feel. 



75 



78. 

''From pulpit to barroom this madness spread, 
Preachers, spinsters, collegians, snobs, bootblacks, 
Gamblers, bawdy-houses, bluestockings to a head, 
Merchants, orators, political hacks 
Brought up the rear, though they claim to lead. 
And all male, female, medical and other quacks, 
Orated, swore, preached, sang, prayed, wrote, and spoke 
To give the nigger freedom from the yoke. 

79. 

"They i rod the ' Fugitive Slave Law ' under foot 

They mobbed, tarred, and killed men who by that law 

Claimed their own. They thought it righteous to shoot 

Masters claiming what they sold, with no flaw 

Of title. Their howl, K^asou could not refute. 

Nor could conscience silence their mad hurrah. 

It was a wave of national insanity 

Like the Hermit's Crusade, plus much profanity. 

80. 

"Here and there the lurid flames of war appeared — - 
Tn Kansas hostile forces met and fought; 
And 'Bloody Kansas' still is often heard. 
Then a Kansas lunatic, John Brown, thought, 
With one boy and a dozen blacks and sword. 
He'd whip a miglity State. He came, was caught, 
Tried for treason, hanged, became a Yankee martyr. 
Because he tried women and babes to slaughter. 

81. 

''Songs in his honor were composed and sung — 
And to show you. Pa! what fools these singers are. 
They sing — forty years since old Brown was hung — 
'John Brown's soul is marching on.' You know where! 
These singers must think the journey very long 
To Hell, or that Brown is not Inii'rying here. 
If marching heavenward, he's ])aralyzed by the figure. 
Since freedom, ciit by his adorable nigger. 

82. 

"This rabies bred the worst of civil wars, 

That sent you fuel, a thousand tons a day; 

Raised a million per cent, the stock of Mars — 

Sent that of Christ as far the other way ; 

Churches cleaved that will never get repairs; 

Turned six million laborers loose to play. 

Murder, sleep, steal, rape, gamble, idle and drink! 

Pa ! that was your biggest haul — so, at least. I think "' 



76 

S3. 

*'My dear son, the entiie campaign I planned. 

Africa was closed to me. Without light 

Negroes could not sin, and so, I manned 

Yankee skippers with letters marque to lighl, 

Kidnap, steal, buy, decoy, on Afric's strand. 

And bring away those children of the night. 

Of the tree of Knowledge to eat, learn good from evil, 

But, mainh , to learn the way to me — the Devil. 

84. 

"I then turned Mammon loose in New England, 
vSet sharptooth Envy knawing at each heart. 
Then, Southern pride I seduously fanned. 
Rent wide the bonds of brotherhood apart. 
Reason dethroned, placed passion in command. 
Hypnotized the Yankees who, at the start. 
Fancied negroes, white angels being crucified 
By coal black demons ripping up their perfumed hide. 

8.5. 

"You were then young, not in sin, but in age. 
Your leadership in evil nascent lay. 
You were then to me, as a wicked page 
Would be to you as Senator. Depravity 
In you though total, was in pupilage 
Without its beastly grossness of to-day. 
You were as baby Catherine to her as queen, 
As angel Lucifer to me as I -m now seen." 

86. 

"For God's sake"—" Dont call God's name here ! " 

"Well, for my sake, I beg, do not repeat 

To Shennan, Alger, or to Foraker 

These delicious compliments, nor ever state 

That to me, in your work, they can't compare. 

They'd sack and sink me as the Sultan Great 

Drowns a brother near the throne. Then, I 'rede vou tent,' 

Alger would fall heir to me and boss the President. 

87. 

"But, Pa, I your discourse interrupted" — . . - , 

"An illbred act, my son. In the Semite 

Where law by Courtesy is sore disrupted, 

It is an irrefragable tenet 

(Even when it by you is being corrupted) 

Never to stop a speaker even when it 

Would adjourn. Through courtesy each one steals away 

And leaves him soliloquizing till the next day. 



77 



88. 

''As I was saying, you were yuuug, too young, 
To realize the bedlam I turned loose 
Under that hypnotism. I made every tongue 
Yell 'Fi'eedom!' 'Higher Law!' and heap abuse 
On all the South until the horrid lung 
(jhorus drowned all argument or excuse 
That pati'iots calm and wise could and did present 
To still the fury of that insane element. 

89. 

"Over the battlements of Hell 1 hung 

To quaff the ecstacy of that mad scene — 

The wildest of deliriums among 

All man's madnesses that have ever been— 

Dora's weird, Cimmerian style, the tongue 

Of eloquence, the poet's tire, the pen 

Of Dante, could not paint the ruin thereby wrought 

Of all the good by human wisdom taught. 

90. 

"But, the best laid plans of the wisest men . 

Have man's infirmities as their alloy, 

Self, for present pleasure will contend. 

Though greater future bliss it can enjoy. 

Thus, the temple only built for Freemen, 

It was ordained that slavery should destroy. 

Its majestic ruin lies in a common grave 

With Greece and Rome — all nurseries of the slave. 

91. 

"With Voltaire, Gibbon, Martineau, Rousseau, 
And Ingersoll their teachings to rehash, 
And a million others who those adore, 
As a greedy millionaire his stolen cash, 
And you to practice all they teach and more. 
The world is whirling hellward at a dash 
Faster than wild Arcturus toward tlie Earth, 
Though not so fast as you soon after birth." 

92. 

"But, Pa, ain't you wrong? Our country's not dead. 

'T is stronger than it was before the war. 

We've more soldiers, plenty of meat and bread. 

Monopolies and mammoth Trusts galore. 

Currency down to ten dollars per head — 

With them we are nolding down the poor. 

With me as head and McKinley as a tail. 

And you to counsel, 'there's no such word as fail.' 



78 

93. 

"My son! Your appetite for wickedness 

Is all the vilest parent could desire, 

But, your comprehension's so far less 

Thau your base passions, it would raise my ire, 

Did I not know full well your willingness 

To aid in catching mortals for hell-fire. 

If your head could, what your heart would, pei'petrate, 

I'd make you now sole heir to my vast estate. 

94 

"I spoke not of things material, base. 

Such as your corruption doth understand — 

Lust, power, wealth — phantoms that mortals <-hase, 

But of a temple pure, conceived and planned 

In the realm of thought ideal and chaste, 

Whose shoreless borders stretch to Spirit-land; 

In whose silent solitude man's trinity — 

Mind, soul, heart, — give earnest of Divinity. 

95. 

"Not of cities, empires, nor thrones in strife, 
These rise and sink like billows in a gale; 
Not of wealth — the shining dross of human life, 
Nor blood that fools to Mammon keep for sale — 
But Christ's Temple, Charity, Love, Belief, 
Christian Brotherhood — at best but weak and frail- 
The Golden Rule, Honor, Virtue, Faith in God — 
Ah! how Faith is broken by the scourging rod ! 

■ 90. 

"A strain, the noblest, best of every age,. 

The pick of nations, as heroic band 

As history records on Glory's page. 

Thence driven by Oppression's bloody hand, 

Defiant of all despots, did engage 

Their 'sacred honor and their lives,' in that land 

A temple to consecrate to Freedom's cause. 

To Justice and her imperishable laws. 

97. 

"They reared a dome exalted nearer Heaven 
Than St. Peter's, and farthest of all from Hell. 
Its plans for justice were divinely given, 
And conscience was left free its sins to tell 
To God alone, each hour or day in seven— 
In no cramped sectarian tent to dwell. 
Freedom without license was its corner stone; 
Law was its king, the people's hearts its throne. 



79 

98. 

"And, when that fair Republic you destroy — 
By your demon's heart and polluting hand, 
While wealth shall revel in a moment's joy, 
Savage Red Anarchy, at my command. 
With brothers' carnage shall this region cloy. 
And mid cities' ashes in darkness stand. 
As my Ambassador your work will then be done, 
And here, Hell's Prince of Wales, you'll wear the crown 
you've won. 

1)0. 

'^Flattery among demons is unknown — 

The snare to catch the vain that I employ 

Through seducers' lips by which weak maids are won, 

And for statesmen even a sure decoy. 

The rank of honor, I now give, my son, 

Take by right of merit. It gives me joy 

To decorate you with my Testimonial 

Of your unequaled service in behalf of Hell. 

100. 

"Speaking for all the hosts assembled here 
From all nations and in all times; — from Cain 
To the rapist beast, Sam Hose • for Robespiere, 
Jiloody Jeffreys, Nero; the worst of Spain — 
Torquemada, Borgia, the scourge, Attila, 
i\.ll nymphs who followed Russia's Catherine, 
1 have the pleasure to announce their abdication 
To the monster that polluted an entire nation. 

101. 

"Of all the arts, devices, schemes, plans to fill 
These pits, your chef d^ou7've, Bribery, ranks first 
Among all things on earth that men call evil, 
But I call good. War's thunder clouds may burst 
And continents drench with blood, but, manhood, still. 
And courage, live to meet or bear the worst. 
Oppression, dungeons, famine, want, may be man's fate, 
But Faith, or Freedom, cheers his heart and bids him wait. 

102. 

"But, your Infernal art destroys man's soul, 
Browbeats courage that sneaks away in shame; 
Degrades to beggary when he takes your gold; 
Makes hini feel, though freeman he be in name, 
Your servile minion to be bought or sold; 
Makes merit worthless, government a game 
Which wealth with Treason's aid from Virtue wins; 
Compounds all felonies, extenuates all sins; 



80 

" Gates of beleaguered cities opens wide 
That Massacre may drink its glut of blood; 
Conscience destroys, then makes a matricide; 
Deserts forms where once proud empires stood, 
Turns laws to dice, justice shoves aside, 
Makes verdicts lie, invades the solitude 
Of man's sole inheritance of Eden's perfect bliss. 
And marks its ruin with the serpent's trail and hiss. 

104. 

"He is as a city sacked by savage foes 
Gaining the citadel by treason's hand. 
Its outer wall no scar of battle shows. 
Its priestless temples in holy grandeur stand 
Like Faith, mid Doubt's despair, in mute re[)0se. 
Desolation reigns; at its dumb command 
Silence spreads o'er the scene a funeral pall 
And echo sleeps in each palatial hall. 

105. 

"But life is there — tlie life that follows death — 
Creeping things— scorpions glistening in the sun. 
And lizards scurrying timidly beneath 
Marble pillars broken when treason won 
Its victory and tore from Art its wreath; 
And poisonous weeds and parasites that run, 
Trailing their slime, througti halls where Honor reigned — 
Such is the wretch when once by bribery gained. 

lot). 

^' Resume your nairative where you left olf. 

Its pleasing flow will make a painful end — 

I notice, now and then, my son, you cough — 

Do the sulphurous fumes your lungs offend ?" 

" No, Pa ! Olfactories sufficiently tough, 

Alger's rotten embalmed beef to withstand, 

Are against brimstone proof. This clime has no suchsmell- 

The highest compliment that ran be paid to Hell. 

107. 

"You know the tortures savages inflict 

On people civilized — ^like me and you — 

When in battle captured, or by cunning lri«-k. 

So, when that, awful civil war was through 

On the white man's back — Lord ! how they did kick ! 

We tied the nigger and dispatched a few 

Of our choicest Statesmen — carpetbaggers called — 

To teach him how to ride and keep the 'withers galled.' 



81 



108. 

"Ye gods ! it was the funniest sight on earth 
To see each blubber lip and woolly head 
Who'd never seen a spelling book from birth, 
When the Statesman-carpetbaggers sweetly read 
Of the glorious constitution, and set forth 
Their right to its provisions, come in full speed 
With mule and cart, or sack, in full divisions, 
To get his share of "de constitution perwisions." 

109. 

"Finding, that Saxon blood could not be ruled, 

We took the nigger under special care; 

Lest of his earnings he would be fooled — 

We formed the Freedman's Bureau where his spare 

Cash was kept till he was thoroughly schooled 

To hate the whites, and frugally to fare. 

We stole his cash and cried, ' The Bank has burst.' 

And, still, the fool nigger did not withdraw his trust. 

110. 

" Just here, my son, I'll speak a pleasant word — 
You have performed your tilial duty well. 
Rebellion is my foe. Vice can not aiford 
Investigation that may its charms dispel. 
Rebellion is but progress by the sword 
To loftier heights where Peace and Virtue dwell. 
It has ever been — will ever be the sign 
That rulers are against the ruled combined. 

111. 

"The thirty tyrants Rebellion overthrew, 

Charles, First, was ruling by your ' Higher Law ;' 

The Barons from wrong their zeal and courage drew; 

Briton upon you laid the lion's paw — 

Gaul's eruption subterranean that blew 

its sulphurous liame, and sped with bloody claw 

Its eagle, over Europe, was but Virtue's groan 

Under tlio weight of vice down-pressing from the throne. 

112. 

"Putting tlie negro savage on the white 
Was all your losing father's heart could ask. 
You turned the beams of heaven into night; 
Increased a hundred fold the Christian's task. 
Kindled hatred, mali<-e, vengeance, spite— 
The joys in which tlie vilest demons bask — 
That Saxon's will and pride you can never bend — 
Still, force the savage negro on him to the end." 



82 

113. 

"Pa! you make me proudei- every time you speak. 
1 feel as big as Lucifer before his fall- 
As big as I did for a solid week 
The first, time I put ou pants. Can you recall 
That proud sensation?" "Did you ever seek. 
My sou, to know Lucifer ? You appall 
Me V ith, your ignorance even of your birth alone — 
Do you not know your father and Lucifei- aie one ? " 

114. 

" I beg you will excuse me, Pa. I thought 
Lucifer was a giant man who threw 
Trees as spears and arrows when he fought 
Against some giants, somewhere, and then slew 
Goliah — but afterwards his hair got caught 
In a ti'ee, and Delilah sheared it anew; 
Then the Philistines made the sun stand still 
For Lucifer, Pharoah's land with plagues to fill." 

115. 

"Son ! Your knowledge of evil is sui>reme — 
Your ignorance of history is shocking. 
That you may at least intellectual seem — 
Become familiar with some Blue-Stocking — 
Assume the air of thought like those who dream, 
Or study out a problem that is blocking 
Man's progress — But, proceed. Let the Bible alone. 
Your education tits you only for this zone." 

IIG. 

" Well, Pa, as you now advise us, we have done — 

Now — thirty years and more since Freedom" — 

" License, you mean ! Be choice in words, my son." 

" Yes, license — for the Southron we've no room 

In federal offices. It is high fun 

To hear them swear and to see their gloom 

When we put our niggers o'er them in control — 

While they all burdens bear to save the negro's soul. 

117. 

*'But this amusement reached its climax when 
We put these blackskin savages and fools 
To framing constitutions and laws: then 
To levying taxes and conducting schools. 
And issuing bonds. It was sending a pen 
Of sheep to Snnday-School ; or drove of mules 
To teach their masters the highest art of war 
Or sticking in the sky a rushlight for a star ' 



83 
118. 

'The carpetbagger statesman tired with, hate 
The bloody savage who ruled with iron hand 
But feeble will. 'T is sweet to contemplate 
Thti Waxou's wrath when rose the Ku-Klux-Klan, 
VYliite-Caps, and Vigilants infuriate, 
Who hung the nigger in that Southern land 
Sd thick they served as country mileposts for awhile — 
The negTO in the Saxon's hands was but a child." 

119. 

"Excellent! my son! you now clearly know, 
The hypnotic spell had not spent its force. 
The craze of (larrison, Phillips, Beecher, Stowe, 
The lunatic, .John Jirown, and you, of course, 
Was in the masses still,, though lauguishingly low. 
The torrent maddened in its mountain source 
Spreads sluggish on the plain, and its rushing sound 
Dies in feeble, fading echoes on the woods around. " 

120. 

'' Your compliments make me lose my story's thread — 
The common people fought to free the slave; 
We kept them pleased with clothing, meat and bread- 
Treated them well as all should ti'eat the brave; 
And when they fell, we the deathroll read. 
Then sighed, and placed a slab to mark the grave — 
They thought it grand to be for Freedom fighting, 
And nothing thought of what we were inditing. 

121. 

"We piled the tariff on them mountain high; 

We issued greenback-money without end. 

Created Banks to keep it on supply; 

Grave them power all currency to lend; 

Taxed all other banks to make them stop or die; 

Made all borrowers on Banks depend; 

Made stocks and bonds the only pledge for loans. 

Excluding lands though millions a farmer owns. 

122. 

"This made the farmer on the merchant lean; 

The merchant on the local Bank depend; 

The local, on the metropolitan; 

And all on our stocks and bonds, without end. 

Thus, against our Power and our will to skin 

The entire nation, there is nothing to defend. 

And we have skinned them from the cradle to the shroud, 

And piled our billions — all b,y means our laws allowed. 



84 

123. 

"Thus the black we freed and enslaved the White, 

Blinding his dull sense to our intention, 

B.V loud applause in honor of his tight, 

And throwing him a sop we call a pension. 

Why, one Rockefeller in the brief iiight 

Of twenty years, (others I could mention). 

Has fleeced' this white slave of more than two years 

Bring to a million of these pensioners. 

124. 

"But the grim humor of the whole affair 
Is that the pensioner and the poorer class 
Pay the pension, because, the millionaire 
"What I have is no man's business but my own.'' 
A tnx on income, not to inquire where 
His wealth is, nor how it he did amass. 
' What I have is no man's busness but my own.' 
And Congress quakes at its master's bullying tone. 

125. 

"We have whittled legislation to a. point — 

The task was hard but perseverance won. 

As a law of Congress comes by the joint 

At:t of both Houses, we needed only one 

And chose the House which suffragans anoint 

Each two years, and weigh them by the ton 

To judge their titness. We found they changed too often- 

Aboiit one third, each change, were packed into a coffin. 

120. 

"That made expense account too large; the other 

Being small, we next to it laid siege. 

When some old Pumps would die, or give us bother. 

We'd buy one from his State, we called a Pledge, 

Who would give points on linance, or fui'ther 

Adverse Legislation, so we then could liedge, 

But, to be brief, we sapped and mined with tools of gold 

Until the people's stronge*^! citadel we hold. 

127. 

" To show you. Pa, how short sighted men are" — 
" You are not my teacher ! Think not, my son, 
Because you rule a President, your spare 
Brain can teach your father. True we are one 
In evil — that distinction we both share — 
But in knowledge I am to you as the sun 
To a firefly. Do not attempt to show me — 
Do as we sometimes do the righteous — tow me. " 



85 



128. 

"Again I tliauk you, i*a — for your high piaise, 
We millionaires care not for intellect — 
Culture, sentiment, right, no more than Hayes 
When he grabbed Tilden's chair without respect 
For decency. When we need them, tliese days. 
We buy them; wealth covers every defect; 
Virtue, honor, truth, genius, are to the rear — 
The sesame to all honors is the word, 'millionaire.' 

129. 

" Pa, you know this carpetbagger, of course" — 
" Know him ? He is my last mintage undefiled 
With alloy of good; of all none worse 
Save yourself — my primogeniture child. 
His creation (xhausted every source 
Of what men call evil, wickedness, guile. 
That remained after I shaped you as my masterpiece- 
Monopolist of all Bribery till Time shall cease." 

130. 

"Oh! that the whole senate could hear you, Pa! 

I'll write it down when 1 return to earth — 

But — what are those terrific yells that mar 

•My narrative!" — "They are from Bacon's berth. 

Hearing the words briber}' and millionaire 

He raves to reach the man who, millions worth. 

Bribed a, nation with millions and bought a president. 

He is spokesman for all Hell paying its compliment." 

131. 

" Who is the gentleman ? Bacon, did you say ? " 

" You do not know Lord Bacon — Chancellor ? 

To whose evil heart without one ray 

Of his great mind — you are full successor ? 

Who on the Bench mori^ bribes took in a day 

Than you disti'ibute in an hour, tliough far lessor. 

But — one who gives his soul to Mammon and all evil — 

Learns nothing honest, decent, virtuous, or civil." 

132. 

"Thanks, Pa ! for your apology for my dense 
Ignorance of liistory— For those remarks 
Of the orator who spoke for this immense 
Assembly, please tell him, but for the sparks 
Flying near me, that require my intense 
Devotion to save my pants with dollar-marks, 
And the noise that pervades this large convention, 
I would a few secrets in bribery mention. 



86 

133. 

"Besides, my own brief story 1 must speed, 

1 was on the senate wiiich we now own, 

(Compounded of each element of greed 

That to Mammon or humanity is known. 

The taritf there has long borne deadly seed; 

Jianks are so thick the tloor is overflown; 

There Trusts and corporations, like green bays, flourish — 

In short all anti-people schemes we nourish. 

134. 

"What a strong compact garrison we make ! 
1 am General — Commandant in chief. 
Issue orders when not, and when, to speak. 
1 mount the guard, and send out the relief, 
Reward the brave, and pillory the weak, 
While the disobedient 1 bring to grief. 
The only law in force is that of Courtesy — 
In imitation of the old-time negro's curtesy, 

135. 

"Recruits arrive whene'er I make a call, 

The Vanderbilts, thinking railroads were weak, 

H^hipped a Krupp gun they fancied would appall. 

They loaded it witJi wind to last a week. 

The breech is large, but its calibre too small, 

I keep it mounted rather than to haul 

It off — and use it as a dummy to make a show. 

And pump it full of compressed wind just to hear it blow. 

136, 

'Tt's labelled Chauncey — queer name for a gun — 

But names were scarce, perhaps, when it was christened- 

Perhaps it was so christened just for fun — 

Still, when it explodes, by hot gas stiffened, 

I wonder it was not named Euroclydon — 

That tycoon that blew until glistened 

The Dead Sea's bottom where Pharoah passed over, 

And Joshua being short on troops sold out to cover." 

137. 

"Stop! Bacon Hears! and thinks you are a fool! 

Try to remember, we are not alone ! 

Were you instructed in a negro school ? 

Your wholesale bribery can not atone 

For your ignorance. You'll destroy your rule 

Over these infidels whose genius slione 

Illustrions when culture was man's chief glory — 

Ere Mammon damned your soul. Go on with your story"- 



87 
138. 

" There is a paper called the Constitution, 
A law for Courts, the people, and the House. 
A House Bill that has not our approbation 
We lay upon the table, or we souse 
It in a basket with indignation. 
Any that the law of Courtesy allows 
Us to consider, if no member should "object," 
We pass, if we think it not beneath respect, 

139. 

"A Bill was sent to extradite two men 
In Georgia wanted on a charge of theft; 
A fellow feeling made us comprehend 
Its danger to us, and — the Bill got left. 
A Bill the anti-Trust law to amend 
Was soon of all vitality bereft — 
Ba! the vulgar odor of that plebeian Bill 
In our patrician nostrils lingers still. 

140. 

"It was an insult to Plutocracy 

Too gross to be endured by gentlemen — 

It fired our blood of Aristocracy — 

Tiiat base assault upon the Upper Ten, 

Our rank, to level to democracy. 

We ordered the Sergeant never again 

To let the Senate's dignity be ruffled 

By the sound, 'anti-trust,' though in a whisper muffled. 

141. 

"Anothei* cunning, anarchistic move 

Is to elect us by the people's vote. 

Then, we must win the peopK-'s smile or l<>ve 

Whereas, now, we but a few hours devote 

To a few base, venal scabs and then 'shove 

The queer' at them as we'd buy a shoat. 

If the Legislature's 'close' we usually buy 

With a few thousands; if no+, a seat may cost ns high. 

142. 

"But high or low, we will our fortress hold. 

For I boss the entire United States — 

And here to you a secret I'll unfold — 

Those damned spirits will break through their iron grates 

And rise to Earth in their incarnate mold; 

The tiger and the lamb be loving mates. 

When Plutocracy yields to that demand 

And from the people's throat shall loose its hand. 



88 

143. 

"With stealth and by degrees an aimy vast 

We. raised ostensibly to drive out Spain 

From Cuba, Porto Rico, and then, last, 

The Philippines,, their freedom to maintain. 

Put, when that hypocrisy shall be past, 

And Mammon's banner float above their main. 

With that bronzed, calUms host — their foreion work well 

done — 
Like Caesar with his ( Jauls, we'll 'cross the lliibicon. ' 

344. 

"Bravo! my son! thou breeder of despair! 

Thou on the air canst demons procreate; 

Pandemonium make of all that's fair. 

All realms of human bliss depopulate, 

.Vnd Woe's eternal reign establish there. 

Of demons thou art greatest of the great ; 

Midas' gold, Apollyon's strength, Death's scythe, are in thy 

hand — 
Go forth with scythe and brilx's and conquer every land ! " 



CANTO FOURTH. 



Dear Scribe, your monitor we left in Hell, 

Seemingly enjoying felicity; 

Under the circumstances he was well, 

As is said soon after safe maternity. 

In fact, I wot, he would there gladly dwell, 

If his Ohio coal mines there could be. 

He would then be as big as Pantagruel 

And have a corner on the Devil's fuel. 



Justice demands that I should pause right here 
And due apology make to Pantagruel. 
I meant not to defame his character — 
He was neither low, vile, corru])t, nor cruel. 
I meant his size— he was such a monster. 
He, like Marc, could fill Ohio; yet, that jewel 
Of a man so good, so pious and gentle took 
For his dearest bosom friend the greatest crook 



89 
3. 

That history or tiction had produced — 

Panurge by name — as vile, licentious rogue 

As e'er from social cloacae was sluiced; 

(riven to every wickedness in vogue, 

Withal neck-deep in debt; and, when reduced 

To beggary, his boss would then prorogue 

The mad assembly of ci-editors with some cash. 

And instead of swearing loud, would say it with a — dash. 



Panurge was handsome, aquiline of nose; 

Medium in size, pleasant in address; 

In raiment, up to date, from head to toes; 

Suave in manners as rhetoric, could express. 

Hut, as weak as Ichabod, who, each one knows, 

^Vas weak as water — Mercy! what a mess 

r have made of Pantagruel and Panurge! 

It 's like turning the ''Rogues' March" into a dirge. 



Though the metre is not badly broken. 
My characters have got sadly mixed. 
Describing Panurge I should have spoken 
Of Hanna, that is, I should thus have fixed 
The parallel, and given a slight token 
Of the difference between one who addicts 
Himself to crime, and one very weak and shallow. 
And willing to be lead by a vulgar fellow. 

6. 

I must attempt again to make a fit — 

Pantagruel was pious, and likewise boss. 

Hanna is boss, but pious — ^devil-a-bit! 

You and Panurge make a still stranger cross; 

You agree in size, nose, weakness, and debt. 

And in being bossed, but there is a loss 

Of parallel in crime which fits Hanna, of course. 

As snugly as he fits you as his hobby horse. 



Were you Hanna's banker and paid his debts 
"When he indorsed beyond his cai)acity ; 
As, Papa paid that fool 's, Joe Leiter's bets 
^Vho escaped oblivion by voracity; 
Or, as Jarndyce coddled one of his pets, 
Harold Skimpole, whose sole tenacity 
Was to debt, and ,you, besides, bossed Hanna, 
You would then be Pantagruel — in a manner. 



90 



I've wandered fi'om my text, apparently. 
Still, it was kindly done for your diversion. 
Asylum keepers lead the inmates gently, 
Never, at qnce, taking a long excursion, 
Nor their feeble minds holding intently 
On one scene, or subject — ^a subversion 
That would be of all rules in mind pliilosophy. 
Nurseries, baby schools, asylums, and society. 
• 

9. 

A great charm in Scherezadie's stories 

Ts change of subject and of characters; 

Mother Goose has a hundred from John-A-Nories 

To pigs, queens, colic, love, and barristers; 

For change, the old woman read dictionaries, 

And gallery gods patronize theatres; 

So, I must leap from honor to Marc Hanna, 

From courage to Alg-er, from you to Freedom's banner. 

10. 

We made a short excursion to the stars 

And while I reverently was adoring, 

(I might as well have sung to you — tra-las) 

You most irreverently fell to snoring. 

We've talked of Hanna, Alg-er's beef and wars. 

And without, further, such things exploring. 

For your pleasure we'll talk of kings and quc^ens, 

Towards whom — or which — your majesty leans. 

IL 

There 's a reason other than your pleasure — 

Tt is to emphasize a mystery 

Whicli nuiy amuse you when you 're at leisure; 

Of all, the strangest in man's history 

That, statesmen will lying fictions treasure 

AAliich idiots and lunatics can see 

Are too absurd to rank with Santa Clans; 

Still, our British cousins weave them into laws. 



One man in England owns all real estate 

A billionaire is he — ^by name, John Doe; 

By reputation the worst reprobate 

Tn all Christendom as court re(.-ords show. 

He seems created just to litigate 

With one other old man named Kii hard Roe. 

Richard and John have fought more bloodless rounds 

Than the unicorn gnd lion have fought for crowns. 



91 



VS. 

A layman wandei-iiij; (hroujili the Inns of (V)url 

^\'llPl•e AVisdoni solemn sits in wij;- and j^own, 

And bai-i-istci's with ^M-ven ba^ and liriefs icscM't, — 

Where even bailifl's wear a look profound — 

To hear the nimble wit and (inick retort, 

Or elo(|nenc(» adorninj;' lo^it; sonnd, 

Hears from the I'ench in drawlinj;', fo|"jiy (ones, 

" Doe, on demise of Sn)ith — I)o(\ on demise of -lones."' 

14. 

F^ver.v day for two centnries old Doe 

Has (*harj»ed Koe with entering:;- on his land, 

Tearinj;: thinj»s ]ip and kickin.u him ont the door. 

IMncky old Roe, ready "tO' take a hand," 

i?obs up serenely, as if never before 

He had met his foe, old John, and takes his stand. 

Old \Vi,u- calls "Time! John Doe against Richard Roe!" 

And at it these old centnry-l) niters go. 

15. 

Ve (Jods! the parries, passes, feints and blows! 
Doe lands, iirst. with the "Rule in Shelly's Case;" 
Roe, with "Remainders," reaches old John's nose; 
Doe with "estates tail" lands full in Richard's face; 
Roe rushes with "estate tail male," but shows 
Open space which Doe, increasing his pace, 
Covers with "estates tail female."' "P^nougii! " 
Shouts the wigged umpire and takes a pinch of snuff. 

16. 

"Time!" the umpire calls and the buffers clinch. 

The Punch and Judy battle to renew. 

AN'ith skulls of Hlackstone, Plowden, Snowden, Finch, 

Eldon, Mansfield, Coke, Holt, Fearne, and Fortescue, 

They hammer, batter, punch o'er every inch 

Of ground and Hooi- till both are black and blue. 

The umpire wakes, and with look of profound cult. 

Retires, grunting "curia advisari vult.'^ 

17. 

Ha\ing c(msul(ed the authorities — 

Otard, Henessey, Hourbon, 'Alf and 'Alf, 

And by tiieir spiritual aid learned where justice lies, 

(Though tluMr wisdon* is never bound in calf) 

"Me Lud," rosy, enters and all there rise. 

While loudly raps the bailiff" witii his staff". 

The eager layman hears again, in foggier tones, 

"Doe on demiser Smith — no! Doe on deaiiser Jonew." 



92 

IS. 

The kiuy being' iniinortai can not die- 
Ruling- by right Divine he 's God-appointed. 
He can do no wrong, therefore, can not lie. 
That is, fi'oni tlie moment he 's anointed — 
A transformation marvelous, but why 
Wales from honor, virtue, truth, disjointed. 
As a ray of light is broken, by a prism. 
Is tlius changed I see not, unless it's by the chrism. 

19. 

AA'lien this gay prince was co-respondent made 
With Lady Mordaunt, by her injured Lord, 
H'^ the unwritten debt of honor paid 
Her ladyship (which some women did applaud) 
ir^wearing so far as he knew she was a, maid — 
"Flat perjury!" was screamed with one accord. 
Yet, some condoned, and one did even maintain, 
" The prince perjured himself like a gentleman." 

20. 

But as no king can lie, Avhat, if the chrism 

That works miracles had made a royal saint 

Of \^'ales the day before that household schism 

Required of liim perjury rather than taint 

The Lady, what then? Nothing, except the rhythm 

Of "maid" might have been heard so very faint 

The judge knowing a, king can't lie, would have thought he 

said, 
"So far as 1 know. Lady Mordaunt is a jade." 

21. 

Then parliament is omnipotent. 

But, rharles. First, dissolved it at his pleasure. 

No act is law without the queen's assent, 

Although she knows^ nothing of the measure. 

The Irish are free — taxes to pay and rent, 

And get little from the public treasure. 

But the anomaly of all anomalies — 

The one that decency and common sense deties — 



Is of that people and the Prince of ^Vales — 

The Prince of loafers, vagabonds, and vice. 

Licensed to invade matrimonial pales, 

A public nuisance worse than Egypt's lice; 

To bilk his creditors he nevei' fails. 

No tailor wants his custoui bul a novi<'e. 

Roue, fashiou-plate, jorkey, gambler whose bets 

The people pay besi(fes his other debts. 



93 



28. 

Is this just? By what htw h.unaii or divine. 
Except tyranny's, ean this l)e justified? 
Yet — Behold! we have here our j^rowing line 
Of loafers, idlers, leeches, tramits, beside 
^^'hich Egypt was favored in her lean kine; 
Hei* seven years of famine uiultiplit'd 
liy a hundred would fall far below the jueasure, 
Our fat kine devour of the laborer's treasure. 

24. - 

"Standard Oil" sucks fifty u)illions a year. 

Trusts and all monopolies billions more. 

Hut the loafers, tramps, idlei-s, we should fear 

Are their heirs wluni they pass to Pluto's shore. 

Such scions Rome grew and nurtured, and Caesar 

\\'{^s the bitter, deadly, only fruit they bore. 

Is your hand stretched forth to "the man with the hoe 

Or, where those golden fountains forever How ? 

. 25. 

When you weighed lueu to form your Cabinet — 

Your Council by the constitution giveu — 

Did you, of the Thiion one third forget ? 

(;Ould you not find a little \Miite leaven 

To mix with the North, just one to seven 

In all the South, you would not regret — 

Not one "Lilly White" in thirteen Stat<'S could find 

Fit to counsel your Napoleonic mind ? 

2<;. 

Do you confess, when thirty years have gone. 

The failure of your creed to teach nve man 

In the South, sufficient to be made one 

Of your counsellors ? Or was it the plan. 

In Hanna's hate, Alger's coAvardice begun. 

So long as Hanna shall l»e in command. 

That Southern Saxon })lood shall not exalted be, 

Because he prefers negro fraternity ? 



Did you forget at first ? Did you forget again. 
And yet again, when vacancies took place. 
VNTien you surveyed tlu^ entire Southern plain, 
Vearniug for a. woolly head and elxm face 
To grace your iiile and negro \(>te retain ? 
Could you not see one of the Saxon race — 
Conquerors of the Eai'th. man's highest type ? 
Why will you hug the negro with such loA'ing gripe ? 



94 

28. 

What heed take you of Nature's steadfast plan, 
Through countless ages working, to evolve 
The highest, noblest, strongest type of man 
Whose Godlike greatness born of high resolve 
Puts him. of all created beings, in the van; 
Whose burning thoughts, themselves a mystery, solve 
All mysteries save one — the First Eternal Cause — 
That, by whatever name, is LAW above all laws. 

29. 

Raised to brief eminence by purchased knaves — 

A Lilliput to fill a giant's place — 

No wonder that you turn to recent slaves — 

The lowest stratum of the human race — 

Below the primal men that dwelt in caves, 

And as your equal fondly them embrace. 

'Tis Nature's constant law in which she's wondrous kind. 

All creatures of like grade in loving groups to bind. 

30. 

" Survival of the Fittest " you have heard — 
So have mules the grandest opera strains ! 
So have your negro counsellors the word, 
"Constitution," but — know they what it means ? 
Has its (xodlike Spirit to them appeared, 
Or taught the ti'uths immortal it contains — 
Babes in brain, with passions wild, monsters in lust. 
That through all moral barriers madly burst ? 

in. 

What care you for the "Fittest" of all men, 

(Who are but plastic vessels at the best). 

To guard what took many a fierce campaign. 

Millions of lives, will invincible, to wrest 

From ten thousand tyrants? What care you, when. 

In this dark hour of Freedoni's crucial test — 

Of thrones and millionaires conspired — you are the tool 

To spread the flames of war that they may seize the Rule. 

32. 

You turn the Levite from that temx)le's door — 
The priesthood God has set to guard that Ark ; 
Install the black heathen Hamites before 
They cease the V^oodoo worship of the "Dark 
Continent" where seas of human gore, 
(Of Nature's vilest demon-brood the mark), 
Have been and are poured out to please a snake. 
Or from its slumber some avenging idol wake. 



95 
33. 

Of the two extremes, ( -hristiaii and savage, 
The latter von have chosen to assist 
Haiina and you, Freedom's hind to ravage. 
Twenty thousand Negroes upon youi- list 
Of "Higher Law" statesmen! Still they average 
^^'ell with the crew, in manhood to resist 
Hribes, theft, new and various peculations 
In Cuba, the Philii)pines, and other nations. 

34. 

" Lay not the llattering unction to your soul *" 

That you can thus humiliate the South. 

She has but scorn, disgust, contempt untold. 

For the mountebank and demagogue, henceforth. 

Who, to her liatei-s by a mortgage sold. 

Oasts dishonor and shame on South and North 

H\ being driven, or led like asses by the nose, 

To hate brave men because they were once chivalrous foes. 

35. 

Your henchman taug'ht the negro bribery 
And, through you, appoints the bribed to office. 
As if his natural bent to steal and lie 
For a Republican does not sutHce. 
Pharoah had of frogs a full supply 
But got, through stubborness, murrain and lice. 
He learned through arrogance and Moses' rod. 
There is a just and an avenging God. 

3(5. 

He avenges through His violated laws 
Both men and nations. "^Vheu the wicked rule 
The people mourn," You, coveting applause. 
Degrade a blind nation to your footstool. 
Insult the foremost race in Freedoni's cause, 
ITse its innate foe — a purchased, servile tool — 
As tyrants used the vilest scum of Rome — 
T(« humble Saxons in their castle-home. 

37. 

"Eternal vigilance!" Was Liberty 
Ever won by this lowest race of men — 
A race that typifies servility ? 
Are they fit guardians to maintain 
What to them means but opportunity 
To practice cnery lust that leads to ruin ? 
If to be governed by the negro race 
We had better have a monkey in your place. 



96 

38. 

H<\ from natal and dose propinquity, 

Knows well this neij;libor's -haracter at home. 

Independent of oonsan<>ninity. 

Yon, he could ^ive, for use in time to come. 

Points not learned by your sweet aftinity — 

One is, in Africa a jui* of rum 

Will buy nej>roes enough to "swing a convention" 

To you without Hanna's greenback inteivention. 

He has seen your- savage take human life. 

Then tear with teeth tlesh (piivering from the bone; 

Butcher thousands even own child and wife 

To appease an angry god — a snake, or stone; 

War on tribes and those captured in the strife 

Rape, torture, gibbering at each shriek and moan. 

Then roast, or bury alive for another feast 

When from his tilthy lair should ci'awl this lazy beast. 

Your administration will be renowned 

Above all others that have gone before ; 

You being the first as emperor crowned — 

Emperor of savages on Luzon's shore; 

For negro satraps that everywhere abound. 

And not one Southerner as counsellor : 

For rapes that multiply as you the white ra<e snub 

And the negro's back so lovingly I'ub. 

11. 

Whether you eat, drink, sleep, walk, work, or pray 
Remember Anathema Maranatha ! 
History will poui' on you the light of day; 
Your polluter of a nation will not be then^ 
To share or ease your shame; his rotten clay 
Will be forgotten, and on your shoulders bare 
Nemesis will lay the lash for seeking <mly self 
Under the vile tutelage of the King of pelf. 

42. 

''Preposterous! Absurd! Slanderous! Vile!" 
No, not all, nor one. Listen and reflect! 
Put yourself and Hanua aside awhile; 
No more our country's interests neglect; 
Assert your manhood! be not a child ! 
P.e president and gain the world's respect ; 
Pnt that Devil, Hanna, behind your back 
Before he damn you to the ])illory and rack. 



The world's history is liiiown and you can read — 

What, bhiod concinered the earth's eonquerer — Rome? 

Who first cliecked the Tope's insatiate ureed 

For Tni versa! Rule; pronounced the doom 

Of Charles; deni(Hl "I)ivine Rijiht to rule," sped 

To a wilderness and made it Fi'eedom's home ? 

Who raised and holds on hi;;h the banner of the (^i-osa? 

Wh«se altiMiism lias }>iven self to save the Lost ? 

44. 

What, then, was your com])anion, nep,ro chum — 

Hedfellow in politics— pi'ote^e — 

Your tender, loving and beloved Yum Yum ? 

Then as now a savaj^e — so yesterday — 

To-morrow, forjner, in his native slum — 

Snake w(ushipper and, when not at play. 

His neighbor slays to eat their tiesh, or exhumes 

iJodies dead of small]>ox and them as food consumes. 

4"). 

The Bla<'k and Ruddy are antipodes 

Between them lies the Brown of many shades — 

(^ne, all nations have subdued with ease 

And held as slaves. The other for Freedom wades 

Through seas of blood — gaining, rising by degrees, 

Stroijger as some tyrant each right invades. 

Concjuest alone has ever tamed your savage- — 

(Ti\e hiip freedom and he begins to ravage. 

4(;. 

One struggling uj>ward through a million years, 
Has. by strength unaided, clambered to the stars, 
And on (Creation's confines, as each appears, 
Counts, names and numbers all; (as, when through bars 
His Hocks passing, does the she])her(l — as each nears;) 
Then weighs them, like a Ood, from flaming Mars 
To Alcione round which all creation sweeps 
Through infinity's unimaginable deeps. 

47. 

He rides the billows as a gentle steed: 
Though they may leap to dash him to the sky 
He recks not tlieir angry crests nor rushing speed. 
The storm Ood's matchless, dread artillery. 
Captured and silent, supplies each hour's need, 
Making anatomy transparent to his eye. 
Nature's prime minister under subjection brought 
Annihilates space for interchange of thought. 



98 

48. 

IJiil^ Tiinc would ^row old wcic I to recilc 
The athievements of (his ruling, rudd.y luau — 
Me^l^^hile the black, symbol of darkest night — 
With P]gyi)t's glories distant but a span, 
And Rome's resphMidently atti'aetJve light, 
Knew but his lusts, in all creations plan. 
Even Nubia's nearer, feeble, nascent ray 
Could nor arouse one effort for a bettei- day. 

The negro feels himself the nation's ward, 
To till all offices (luite competent; 
A president Republican, his lord; 
And for his care a nurse omnipotent. 
He foi' othce would l*aradise discard, 
Not caring after death which way he went; 
Praying for more Rej)ublican masters to be l)orn. 
And that Gal»i'iel in some way might lose his horn. 

Had you a tithe of "Old Hickory's" nerve. 

You would subdue the negro by a word; — 

Proclaim, never should he in ottice serve 

Till raping ceased and order be restored. 

You'd change their <-reed (from which they never swerve) 

To harbor rapists, murderers and thieving horde. 

Their preachers, teachers, office seekers — worst of all — 

Would nmke peace between the lion and your jackal. 

Tell the howling, thieving, devilish crew 
That meet in Northern cities and "Resolve 
Lynching must be stopped" — tell those few- 
Rapists, and band of thugs who there revolve 
Around bar-rooms, slums and every lecherous stew. 
First to be made eunuchs, if they would solve 
This problem; to learn the first of Nature's laws. 
That to cure disease tliey must tirst remove the cause. 

52. 

With freedom thirty years where does he stand ? 

How has he used the talent he received ? 

In a napkin buried? Had he, this land 

Would be a Paradise though not relieved 

From the dark shadow of this nomad band. 

He's used it so. Heaven and Earth aie grieved — 

Used it to perpetrate enormities in crime 

Unthinkable by man or beast before his fi-eedom's time. 



99 



53. 

Father, luotluT, children, at chvse of day, 
A happy ftioup at peace with all mankind; 
A babblinj;- infant on the bosom lay; 
And cheerful smiles spoke each contented mind. 
And as their frn^-al meal they took, the play 
Of jest went round the board, by love refined. 
Where can virtue, honor, love in safety dwell, 
Since scene so full of joy at once bc^comes a hell. 

54. 

As the tiger on its prey, a demon sprung 
Within and with ax cleaved llie father's head. 
Spattering his brains among the food; then Hung 
The babe against the wall; forced to the bed 
The widow, braining the child that to her clung — 
Who, when ravished, was told, he 'd spread 
Her brains upon the Hoor, but he spared her yet awhile 
To suffer until she should bear a negro child ! 

55. 

Two centuries in slavery disciplined 

He did not lose what thousands had impressed. 

The hyena by iron bars confined 

May, its ferocity, partly, have repressed 

With rod and lash and kee]>er's will combined. 

But, when, for an hour from its cage released, 

'T is a hyena still, obeying Nature's law. 

Digging in graves for tlesli v\ ith tooth and claw. 

5(;. 

By the enlightened, humane Saxon ruled 

For tw^o centuries, this savage was restrained — 

Not subdued. He was to ob(Hlience schooled 

liy fear, but what of humanity he gained 

Heiug by oi'dei-, justice, will, controlled. 

Was lost when self-supremacy he obtained. 

His savage lusts broke loose in a fiery flood 

Of basest crimes — arson, lechery, rape, and blood. 

57. 

I as your confidential clerk advise. 

It's time that you should take account of stock. 

Three years you 've been in business '^and the rise;" 

There's been a rush, you've had no time to lock 

Tlie doors to see how you stand. It might surprise 

You when I a balance strike, or it might knock 

An idea or two into your stolid pate. 

Or the peoi)l<' wake before it be too late. 



100 

58. 

To debit or credit — just as one thinks — 

You have two foreign, very foreij^n wars, 

So mndi that when toastinj; Dewey one drinks 

His health, if ]>etw<'en them there Avere no bars, 

Fie wonhl stand on Dewey soU'S as the «;lass he dinks, 

And Dewey stand on liis head; whicli fa<-t mars 

To some dej^ree tlie <;ravity of the sentiment, 

And, no less, the tlHM)ry of onr j^overnnient. 

51). 

You have, besides, a. billion more of debt. 

And a death roll of near ten thousand men, 

P^ach wortli a million of the hordes they met 

Of savajj;eH in jun«;les, boj;', and fen. 

As factors in mankind's lon^ toil to set 

On high the Savittr's banner' of I^eace, when 

The sword shall turn into a. ]>runing hook, 

And the badge of Rule shall be a shepherd's crook. 

60. 

You have, also, twenty million dollars 

Paid to Spain for the privilege to teach 

Ten million truant, rebellious s<holars, 

The art of government and how to prea<h. 

That dwell in shacks, jungles, lioles, and wallows, 

.Vnd wear neithei- hat, shirt, shoes, cojit, nor breech; 

Made citizens by purcliase, without title in Spain, 

And killed for fighting because you would not explain. 

01. 

You have the epidemic })lague of Trusts — 
Deadlier 1han the lilack tongue of the East — 
Starting with your infectious i-ule, as bursts 
A gang of thieving convicts when released 
Through bribery, or force; or, what is wors< — 
Like Harpies licking u]) the ])oor man's feast. 
That Jersey daily litters like rats and mice, 
Or Egypt's locusts, flies, frogs and lice. 

G2. 

What title had Spain to the Philippines 

That twenty millions we should pay, or one ? 

By cession, protection, or as one finds 

A lone island and takes quiet possession ? 

On histon^'s page are no darker lines 

Than the crimes by Spain in those islands done — 

Rapine, murder, cruelty, vice of all degrees. 

Make up, in part, her record there for centuries. 



101 

Who wonders at. tlie Filij)inos' fear 

When beinj; hai'tei-ed to Spain's <'onqneioi- ? 

"Freedom ? Friends ? Allies ? Nol a chanj^e of master ! 

Pay for the ri^ht to Ite our protector ? 

' With this swarm of tlies do not interfei'e 

They are now fall; if driven off another 

Ravenons swann will come and drain onr veins, 

A change of masters will not end onr pains.' " 

04. 

\^' hen the treaty makers at Paris met 
Spain defeated, banki-ujit, helph ss, hopeless 
Without the salve of a. sincere regret, 
Thougli Europe envious was at onr success, 
Bethought herself as other gamblers bet, 
((Trowing desperate as their cash grows less) 
To sell islands to us she did not own, 
Being then "short" on islands in every zone. 

«5. 

The blood of every freeman friend or foe 

Fallen, or who may fall, in that war for trade. 

Cries like the blood of Abel from below 

For your damnation, for your silent aid 

Given those demons led by Agninaldo 

To butcher their deliverers. Had you said 

What duty demanded yon should have spoken. 

What blood ha<l not been shed, what hearts not beenbi-oken! 

(>t;. 

"Let justice be done though the Heavens fall!" 

It is the brightest star in Deity's crown. 

There are degi'ees in mercy — great and small — 

Truth absolute and i-elative is known. 

One punishment, onr conscience doth appall ; 

Another we approve as mercifiil, so shown 

By inflicting death, or prison-life, for crime; 

The flow and ebb of mercy changing with the time. 

(57. 

There are seasons when truth should not be told, 
(childhood's thoughts run on things it should not know; 
Robbers have no right to know where lies your gold; 
Love, by evasion, may oft its sweetness sliow. 
But, Justice can nothing alter or withhold, 
It is the Unchangeable here below. 
Those dismal mounds strewn along yon desert wide 
Marks nations that, for injustice. Justice crucified. 



102 

68. 

Tn vain we heaj) oiir sins on others' heads; 

In vain we drive the feeble to the wall; 

In vain we <loak onr dark, malicious deeds; — 

There is within an an}>el that we call 

"Conscience" whose accnsinj;' tonj^ue nnc(^asinf>- pleads 

F'oi- Justice to be done. If it befall, 

We heed not, hear not, feel not, its plain demand. 

We need no Judj^inent Day — we are already damned. 

09. 

Murder and war are deeds that closely mate. 

They are man's bitter, ashen. Dead Sea fruit — 

One is crime, war is murder by the State; 

One sinks the villian far below Ihe brute, 

And one makes heroes whom the world calls "(Jieat." 

Thus, for the same deed, we to one imj)ute 

Murder, because malice was the reason. 

To the other, praise, when killin<;- is in season. 

70. 

But let that pass; you've sense enough to know 

Right from wrong, a, gentleman from a blackguard. 

Still, you do not — moiv 's the pity, and so. 

You've made your bed, and I will not retard 

This moral by further prying below 

Where you and Marc lie snuggled close and hard — 

You "coving" that gorilla's "amiable cheek" 

As he commands you what, how, when and where to speak. 

71. 

But, adieu ! to yonr administration — 
Or Marcus Hanna's — it is all the same. 
Except, you are responsible to the nation. 
He gets all the credit, you all the blame^— 
It 's marvelous that one in your high station 
('an be so weak, truculent, servile, tame. 
Namby-pamby, shuffling, and blind to sure disgrace, 
As to be ruled by one so vulgar, ignorant and base. 

72. 

The Civil War has passed some thirty years— 
The Armageddon of all time. The tread 
Of near four million Christian men ; the tears 
Of Christian women grieving o'er their dead; 
The forming ranks, the bugle call, the fears 
That o'er the cheeks of bravest men will spread 
Their livid hue; the charge, the deadly roar 
Of cannon mowing the melting ranks' that ponr 



103 
73. 

Their wasted valor o'ei- the field; Ihe truce and search 
For the dead and d.yin^-; the j>hastly hue 
Reudered more ghastly by tlie lurid torch; 
The hasty bier, the ditch in whicli you threw 
A comrade, brother, j^-one even beyond the reach 
Of love that lingers for the farewell view — 
These are memory's trophies— what else remains? 
Accumulated billions — and your wounds and pains, 

74. 

And of that Titans' conflict does what remains 

Compensate for all its sorrows, this loss 

Of treasure, lakes of richest blood, the pains 

And agony of women? I pray you, count the cost, 

Calmly, justly and say — what are your gains? 

Ye, who the winepress trod through heat and frost. 

Weary of foot and heart, who knapsacks wore, 

Limbs left upon the field, and dismal prisons bore. 

75. 

You fought for freedom to this race "oppressed" — 
The saddest misconception in all time — 
Only savages whose passions were repressed 
By law, justice, they knew not in their clime; 
Their wrongs were few and seldom not redressed ; 
Their punishment but meted out for crime. 
Or, when their untamed savagery bi'oke the bounds 
Of order, law, right, among all Christians found. 

76. 

You fought to raise the negro to your plain 

To make him what, before, he never was — 

(^an not be: — a-self-sustaining freeman. 

If you would know his measure, seek the cause 

Not in slavery by you called inhuman, 

liut in Nature's stern, inexorable laws 

That fixed the races Ruddy, Hlack and Brown 

And on the Ruddy's head placed dominion's crown. 

77. 

Vou sought io elevate a. fellow-man — 

A purpose worthy chivalry of old — 

You sped him downward into himself again. 

Helpless victim of j)assions uncontrolled. 

Of appetites o'er which he holds no rein. 

Of demonism that makes the blood run cold. 

Of superstitions that blind all moral sense. 

And hatred of vour kin for which there 's no defense. 



104 

78. 

You made him rival for your daily bread — 

A el lib for millionaires to beat you down. 

AVhen by them pinched, driven to sorest need, 

Your Ruddy manhood aspires to the crown 

That (lod and Nature placed upon your head, 

If your manhood win. the judicial gown 

]iy "Injunction" reminds you of your new evangel — 

*' The negro is my equal, even were I an angel." 

79. 

This bundle of passions, appetites and hate, 
You made ruler of your Ruddy brother; 
(rave the keys to treasury, and of State, 
Though he knew not one letter from another; 
Full power gave him to inaugurate 
(Tovernments, constitutions, and laws, further. 
To make that Socrates and Plato could not frame, 
Though (Jreece would pale on Glory's page without their 
fame. 

80. 

You have made hiui umpire of your own fate. 

Two presidents his venal choice has nmde — 

He holds the powei- in ('ach doubtful State. 

You have on your race a burden laid 

That to his Atlas strength may prove too great. 

NMien kindness, help, forbearance, are repaid 

With ingratitude, rape, arson, murder, theft. 

You)' "Higher Law" points out the only recourse left. 

SI. 

The Question still recurs — what have you gained? 

You freed the negro and yourselves enslaved. 

The cunning Shy locks at their desks remained, 

The waning credit of your country shaved — 

The deeper <-utting as the more it waned. 

And when the tiag o'er your kin in triumph, waved 

They, as youi- praises sung and "Rravos" shouted loud — 

Were weaving secretly the doomed Republic's shroud. 

S2. 

Whence comes your grief? Rome stood six centuries 

Ere wealth, concentrated, as here, in one — 

Yea, in thirty years! Your miseries 

Began — (before there was neither sign nor moan), 

When, of all destructive, anarchistic- lies — 

The worst — " Higher Law " — its v. ;\v to power won. 

Then your woes, like streams of tieiy lava sluiced. 

From the yawning, retching gates of Hell were loosed. 



105 

83. 

Do you not see the grave they dug for .you? 
What means these monuments vaulting to the sky 
Of millionaires, before that war how few I 
Now, "thick as leaves in Valambrosa lie." 
Their lengthening, widening shadows mildew 
The patriot's life as o'er his hut they fly — 
Yet, these are but the roses on the cancer's base 
Deep-seated in you that surgery must etface. 

84. 

Behold your feeble, thinly scattered ranks — 

United, against your foe, invincible. 

Know you not, your enemy gives you thanks 

For your firm staud upon a "principle" 

And scorns you as a headless mob of cranks ? 

The dreadful doom awaits you that befell 

Athens, Sparta, Rome, divided into petty bands, , 

While the foe is forging iron fetters for your hands. 

85. 

One little squad condemns the use of wines 

And huddles to itself to save the world, 

\M41e Empire quaffs your blood in the Philippines. 

One for labor their banner has unfurled; 

One for "the middle of the road" combines; 

Another strives to have our uiothers hurled 

From their domestic throne where they rule the earth. 

To give to politics a new and quite miraculous birth. 

SB. 

There are many more — and may God help them! 
Blindly, madly, pulling against each other. 
As oarsmen, who would a wild current stem. 
Drift helplessly and go down together. 
Who justly but themselves can they condemn ? 
Your "principle" should be — " save self and brother ! 
Save country, freedom, save all from empire I " 
In whose bloody breath eai-th's energies exi)ire. 



^''Tempora mutantur et mutamur 

Cum nils''' Eistwhile it took a million men 

A year delving with hoe, plow, anvil, hammer, 

To save a hundred million — Noxo, one can pen, 

In Autolycus' style, that sum without murmur 

From his victims, who seem to say, "Amen!" 

Whom Trusts are boldly drawing the chord to choke 

While they, like "dumb, driven cattle," take the yoke. 



106 

88. 

Yet, yon are Hercules with power to crush 
This boa constrictor and, to the world 
(rive freedom. Why so lon<;' this craven hush— 
This dastardly submission ? Awake! and hurl. 
As the anji'els, Satan, this monster, and crush 
Its serpent's head before it round you coil 
Its icy, deadly folds! Are there no Howards 
Livinj^- still ? Are you a nation of cowards ? 

8!). 

If not, then you dwell in Ejiyptian nij;ht ; 

" HaA'ing- eyes to see, you see not" — you are blind ! 

Blind as Bartimeus before his sight ! 

Need you a miracle to inform your mind ? 

Your squalid bed is a "pillar of lij.;ht;" 

In your loved ones' hunjj;er and raj;s you find 

" A cloud by day." If you be men, they will guide your feet 

Where these tyrants and their foes, soon or late, shall meet. 

1>0. 

Your huts stand crowded in the vale below; 

Scant your daily fare, sleepless lies your head, ' 

( 'allous your hands from toil, y(nir steps drag slow. 

Your hearts grows faint, as thickening troubles spread • 

Their palling gloom. What dt)es a day's work show? 

A year's yield 's not enough to shroud your dead ! 

Is the fault in you — strong, brave, active, willing, man — 

Industrious, honest, law-abiding citizen ? 

91. 

Look up! around! you'll feel as well as see 

Those palaces glistening in the sun — 

"Cottages" — so called by Plutocracy. 

Know ye how these mansions regal were won? 

Think you by toil, or even honestly? 

Yes, honestly as tricks in trade are done; 

One trick more profit brings in one idle hour 

Than in your lap a hundred toiling years could shower. 

02. 

"This country can not be half free, half slave,'' 

Nor Plutocracy and Democracy. 

The spade for one is digging now a grave; 

On your strong arm depends whose it shall be. 

Your patriot sires, resolute and brave, 

Dying bequeathed to you a legacy 

De-Jirer than all riches of the earth and sea 

\M11 you keep it, or sell your offs})ring into slavery ? 



107 
~ 93. 

Do you not discern rising from the sea — 
Far away — a scarcely visible form, 
Shapeless, but like dark clouds fragmentary. 
Assuming a monstrous mein? Look! an arm 
Apparently comes forth, and there seems to be 
A halo around it, glowing and warm. 
Like the morning light— ^now, turning red 
As though some unseen foe upon it bled. 

Now — from the lurid mass appears a head, 

And crimson flecks like blood drip from its jaws. 

As boas huge their thin covering shed, 

A garment drops^ — Another change ! and claws 

Extend — while on its flank dark figures spread 

A hoarse roar from the deep comes like applause. 

As in the figures legible now we read — "Empire''^ 

And sky, sea, earth, blaze up — Behold! the world's on fire! 

95. 

In this blackest hour o'er Freedom's only home, 

Where Treason's shadow darkens every door, 

"Where royalism forebodes what is to come, 

Like the storm's low murmur on the shore; 

Where wealth's resplendence casts a thicker gloom, 

Where law no limit sets to riches' store. 

But fosters every scheme avarice can devise 

To keep the poor a-gronnd, and help the rich to rise, 

9G. 

Would you save yourselves, country, freedom — all ? 

What helpful remedy do you propose ? 

Anarchy ? "\^Tiat ? Have this terrestrial ball 

Again " witliout form and void ?" Would yon close 

The gates of Paradise and open Hell ? 

From that lawless, bloody chaos, who knows 

What dragons would come, like the horses pale and red — 

Death and Destruction rode while by them ^'hell was led?" 

97. 

Anarchy ? No ! ten thousand times, no! no ! 

Order is God's decree, and Nature's law — 

Anarchy is chaos on fire ! If you know 

Your rights. Justice choose — it has no flaw. 

With it cleave deep to both bone and marrow — 

The only sword God permits man to draw — 

God's only weapon, forged in Heaven, tempered in Christ's 

blood. 
To evil a flaming fire, the avenger of tiie Good. 



108 

98. 

If you would conquer you must organize — 

No longer be a howling, lieadless mob : 

Gird up your loins for tbis liigli enterprise. 

And with, defiance face the drones whoi ''rob 

The cradle and the grave." Heed not their lies — 

" Poor man's friend," "higher wages" — that grainless cob 

They've fed you on for fifty years, while with the grair> 

You gi'ow, they Monte Cristo's fabled riches gain. 

99. 

What are you — undistinguishable mass 

On whose broad back Society is built ? 

Balaam's, Sancho's, every tyrant's ass? 

Herded and held for your blood to be spilt 

When Nero, sated with debauch, to pass 

A merry night, insensible to guilt, 

Makes faggots of you, burns you at the stake with beasts, 

And calendars that butchery among his royal feasts ? 

100. 

Or, when an emperor, sultan, king, czar, 
Perchance, a lunatic, as George the Third, 
Tlie peace of nations, for a slight, would mar, 
Shakes the world's pillars, Jove-like, with a word, 
Plays you as dumb pawns in the game of war — 
" Food for powder," the guillotine, or sword — 
Dying, to rot forgotten like a dog. 
Living, fed, perhaps, on scrapings like a. hog? 

101. 

Or, when a President, the spawn of gold 
And bribery, drives you to a foreign land. 
To butcher savages, as tyrants of old 
Drove their villeins; or like targets stand 
For cloutless heathens to fill you with cold 
Lead, or arrows poisoned; while on every hand 
Rockefellers swarm to reap the crop your rich blood 
Has grown, like the Nile's overflowing fertile flood ? 

102. 

Are you but cattle awaiting to be bought 

By Mark Hanna at five or ten a head — 

Gold you have, through great tribulation, wrought. 

But wrenched from you by Trusts and others' gi^eed**^ 

Are you knaves thus venally to be caught? 

Or driven to dishonor by your need? 

Are you but sheep to follow any wether 

He may buy and bell to vote you all together. 



109 



103. 

Are you freemen, or Rockefeller's slaves ? 
Were you born peons, serfs, for him to delve 
And crawl between his legs to paupers' graves? 
Shall his three hundred millions swell to twelve 
Or twenty, gathered as voracious waves 
Gulp down rich argosies and, useless, shelve 
In fathomless depths of the miser-sea. 
Valueless to it and lost to humanity? 

104. 

By what right or law human or divine, 

May one monopolize the gifts of God 

Common to all? Was the sun made to shine 

For a favored few? Did the magici rod 

Bring forth water for man and not for kine? 

Divide the sea for ]\Ioses to pass dry-shod. 

And not Israel's hosts? Did the Savior die 

To save the rich and Redemption to the poor deny? 

105. 

When Deity in dungeons of the earth 
Imprisoned the sun's rays in coal and oil. 
Benignly stored for all men, when the dearth 
Should come of fuel gathered on the soil, 
Were they stored only till Rockefeller's birth 
That he should all the human race despoil. 
Doling out to you by gallons, or by pounds, 
God's beneficence, as he makes his princely rounds? 

100. 

With Reynard's craft and Bruin's plantigrade 
He 's found and covers Earth's petroleum store ; 
Vanderbilts with wealth, from stock they watered, made, 
Now clip your hard earned gains from shore to shore; 
Hunting-ton's rival track built with bonds unpaid. 
Has bled you a thousand millions and more; 
Heaven's courier caught by Franklin, tamed by Morse, 
The Goulds have seized by stealth and hold by force. 

107. 

Iron, God's best gift save water, wood and air — 
What right — beasts of burden— have you to it 
Till you tribute pay to some millionaire? 
Are not his meshes o'er the whole earth knit? 
Can you break through them, e'en though in despair? 
Do you not know, the Trusts with golden bit 
Rule "the powers that be" — fawning manikins — 
Who in base submission bow where thrift begins? 



no 

108. 

You have seen Judgment change within a day, 

And "Sacred Income" put above taxation; 

The same Bench packed by plutocrats to say 

"Coin" means j9aper, in the Constitution ; 

A judge for many months witli Justice play, 

Then yawn, "there is no ground for extradition" 

Of two plutocrats a jury charged with crime 

Of "Larceny" so "Grand" it approaches the sublime. 

109. 

When the Senate to heal the statute's flaw 
Passed a bill, you have seen how "wondrous kind" 
A Senator cloaked the thieves and damned the law. 
Then, Neely, ambitious not to be behind 
Gaynor and Greene, to Cuba "came and saw 
And conquered." How that "Higher Law" doth find 
Disciples so meek and low, to anything they stoop, 
From robbing a nation to a negro's chicken coop. 

110. 

Forty years you have felt this "Higher Law" — 
Than the Bible higher, higher than God. 
You have felt it at your very vitals gnaw; 
On your naked, shirtless backs have felt its rod ; 
At your scanty meals have felt its beak and claw ; 
Felt it whene'er your loved ones you have shod; 
Seen sheriffs, with it, shoot down your unarmed ranks. 
For which brave deed you've heard return; of thanks. 

IIL 

We have seen a ship of majestic hull, 
Full rigged, sails strong, and shape of perfect plan, 
With cargo meet for starving nations, full — 
The humblest of her crew a nobleman — 
Graceful in motion as the wild sea-gull 
Dipping its glad wing in the watery main. 
Gliding with even keel through glassy seas, 
Riding the raging waves in cradled ease, . 

112. 

Boarded by pirates, the crew in chains confined. 

Or forced to "walk the plank;" riotous greed 

Destroy her stores; her hull with barnacles lined 

And scuttled to dust by worms; fonl seaweed 

Choke her way ; her sails resistless to the wind 

In tatters hang; the tide alone give speed; 

Till, drifting rudderless on some reef, or treacherous ground, 

Awhile the billows' prey, ingloriously go down. 



Ill 



113. 

Have you no dread that this great State may die 

The guilty death of others — Greece and Rome? 

Go — ask that taJe-of-death called history — 

The hortus siccus of every nation's tomb ; 

These dumb relics do not deceive nor lie. 

Hear you not the warning echo from their doom? 

Were they not Republics, boastful of liberty? 

Can boasts prevail against corruption? Let us see — 

111. 

Far eastward through the gray and misty dawn 
Stood Babylonia wearing as her crown, 
Babylon, which from Euphrates' mud was won 
By servile hands to please a king. Farther on 
Assyria appears, of no less renown 
For walls and gates and brutal slaughter done. 
Vain were their conquests, conquered to be in turn, 
Time holds their ashes in his sacred urn. 

115. 

Still nearer Egypt stands, and all alone — 
The paradox of time. Mankind, for ages, 
On her enticing mysteries have thrown 
The calcium light of learning which sages 
Of all the nations, since her time, have known. 
In the vain attempt to read the pages 
Of her history written in Cheops' tomb — 
That type of Egypt's monumental gloom. 

116. 

Next and brightest, unrivaled Greece is seen, 

Endowed with all that makes a people great. 

Though near three thousand years are stretched between 

Her fall and our rise, and we are elate 

Over our achievements, yet we only glean 

Whereof she reaped, proud to perpetuate 

Her painting, sculpture, logic, epic song. 

And dwell enraptured on her matchless tongue. 

117. 

Her language, soft and sweet by Sappho sung, 
Was love's and music's universal strain; 
Spoke by Demosthenes' electric tongue, 
It kindled the eye of Mars o'er sea and main; 
Grand as wild Neptune's sublimest tones rung 
Over the world in Homer's epic vein. 
Wondrous is thy beauty! thy depth profound! 
Thou Helen of all form, and Psvche of all sound! 



112 

lis. 

Born between the Old Bible and the New, 
When Prophec}' was carrying in her womb 
The seed of Inspiration, and the Jew 
Watched for her delivery and the doom 
Of idols, Greece, Godless and alone, drew 
From earth, sky, sea, heroic deeds, the gloom 
Of Fate, an Inspiration all her own^ — 
And Sculpture rose ti-iumphant to her throne. 

119. 

There sits she laurel-crowned to-day, and there 
Will reign till man and time shall be no more, 
For Genius' self is filled with "fond despair" 
At her own triumphs on that classic shore, 
Where, from the rock, into the enamored air, 
Divinit}' in form stepped forth before 
Adoring men, at Phidias' high command — 
That mortal master with immortal hand. 

120. 

When Homer would his rapturous numbers pour 
In rushing torrent, or sweet as Psyche's name, 
Fair Clio teeming with historic lore. 
And Calliope with music's rhythm came; 
And Neptune brought the mad sea's frightful roar, 
And Mars, wild shrieks and all devouring flame; 
He with these his ministers, his realm, the earth, 
Another and a brighter world brought forth. 

121. 

His spirit divine, like creative power 

Over chaos brooding, gathered the past 

And all ages to come, into an hour 

Of perfect ecstacy; and from the vast 

Of nothingness, fashioned the flower 

Of poesy — beauty's immortelle, to cast 

A charm along life's rugged, gloomy path, and give 

The disappointed heart encouragement to live. 

122. I 

And now we look on Rome, like some high peak 
Overtopping all; ruled by the fierce Sabine, 
And founded by wolf-nurtured twins. We seek 
Not in vain for deeds of blood and rapine 
Along her world-wide march where fell the weak 
And strong in one red swath, till no confine 
Of earth, then known, felt not her hostile tread. 
Crushing all empires whether they fought or fled. 



11^ 

123. 

Born of adventure, (U'adled in distress, 
Slie rose inspired with Nature's savaj^e mood. 
With back against her hills, like Leonidas' 
Against the wall, when Persia's human flood 
Poured on him, she welcomed to her caress 
Invading foes, and wrote with her sword in blood 
Her right to empire; then, circling far away, 
Her eagles flew like falcons to their prey. 

124. 

Kingdom, republic, empire, slavery, 
AVreck, she was in turn. Then, the long twilight. 
Dividing men's hopes and fears, when bravery 
drew timid, and the sleepless, nervous sight 
Drew grim spectres, set in. "J'tien knavery 
And power were one; and soon the pall of night 
Settled on the world, and the Dark Ages 
Reigned and passed with scarce recorded pages, 

125. 

Yet, brilliant o'er her melancholy wreck, 
Like jewels glittering on dead beauty's fonn. 
Are scattered monuments of art that deck 
Her livid nakedness; as, Avhen the storm 
Shivers a proud ship, and on the bleak 
And ravaged shore, strews, lifeless but still warm, 
Nature's model statues, of garments riven. 
Fashioned of clay by Sculptor's hand in Heaven. 

126. 

In that Arctic-summer night — neither day 

Nor total darkness — the glory of the Past 

Faintly glimmering over the waste — lay 

The world for centuries. Secluded fast 

In Christian cloisters shone the vestal ray 

Of Hope. Around a hundred thrones were massed 

Each tyrant's superstitious minions 

Who lived, fought, and died without opinions 

127. 

Save their masters'. It was the reign of Mars 
Under whose blows humanity staggered back, 
And blindly groped o'er fields which wars 
Successively enriched with blood; no lack 
Of men to fill the breach, or grace the bars 
Of dungeons, or to perish on the rack; 
As, for all time, led on by royal knaves. 
Unthinking fools have filled ignoble graves. 



114 

128. 

For an age the world lay fallow, and its vaJes 

And places high continuously were swept 

By destructive storms against which the pales 

Of Christ's church were no barrier. Brave men slept 

Armor-clad, and waked to die; and the tales 

Of woman's woes rent the air, as she wept. 

Bedewing the earth, when she saw the "red rain" 

Fall, and all her hopes dead among the slain. 

129. 

And from that fallow, mellowed thus by tears 
And anguish, and warmed by pitying loAe, 
Sprang the flower of Chivalry — of years 
And agony the gi'owth; and far above 
All banners high it waved, and woman's fears 
Dispelled, and from her breast black horror drove. 
Rough was its stem, but sweet the fruit it bore, 
The tree is dead, the fruit we hold in store. 

130. 

On that raging, wild, tumultuous night 
Of warring kingdoms, dukedoms, baronies, 
The torch of Chivalry was Freedom's light — 
Like a beacon over storm-driven seas — 
Now dimly glimmering on some petty height. 
Now lost to view, as, when umbrageous trees 
Veil a star lovers watch as their star of destiny, 
Through painful intervals, as it ascends the sky. 



At Runnymede, at last, it brilliant shone, 

Then flickered low and dim four centuries; 

At Naseby by old Ironsides was borne 

Heavenward till its glory dazed the eyes 

Of Europe. It was Freedom's second morn — 

An inspiration to the oppressed to rise. 

The Regicide more blessings on mankind conferred 

Than all earth's sacrifice save that of our Lord. 

132. 

Again Chivalry declined; the Old World 

Having worn the chain of royalty so long, 

Like dungeon victims who, when the gates are whirled 

Suddenly back, fearing some other wrong, 

Refuse to move, seeing that flag unfurled 

Dallied — and died a dastard, slavish throng. 

Bnt a few brave spirits with unconquered hand 

Seized Freedom's torch and bore it to this land. 










'.o "ti , ^ a\ N«^ •' . . « .0 O 







^^•^^ 









^^•^^. V 







^ 






o V 

. .^-. ^^^/ ^.^^ ^.^^'-M--"-^--^^" 





'^'^ 









.V 
















0^ .-^^^^ V -.5^^ o. 









J^ 0°/. "^^'^ 




^^..<i'^ 









vc,-' 








